Head First Design Patterns

A fun book with a rather irreverent style that intros the many common and not-so-common design patterns. It also provides a good basis for learning object-oriented methodology as well as MVC architecture. While the book is fun to read and the examples cute, you may find it a shortcoming that it does not have much in the way of real-world problems. It explains the good and bad of patterns in detail, but it is somewhat lacking in teaching you which pattern best fits a particular use case.