
Programming Windows Fifth Edition
Like the Kernigan and Rithie book on C, this is one of the best books on Windows programming in C and with the raw APIs. Charles Petzold is a great author like Dennis Ritchie. The examples are thorough and easy to follow and show the core basics in Windows API programming. Even if you do not program Windows API and use higher level methods such as MFC (Microsoft Foundation Classes) or even .NET then understanding how Windows works under the hood is still useful.
