good CS textbooks for a DIYer

[John Allain]

> Anyway, if anyone could recommend decent first-year
> and/or second-year books on algorithms* and data
> structures in C/C++, I would appreciate it.
     *corrected

I liked this one as soon as I saw it:
Introduction to Algorithms.
Thomas H. Cormen et. al. McGraw Hill

This after pleasant experiences reading books from these folks 
Aho, Hopcroft, Tennenbaum, Wirth, Ullman.

I found it by browsing the best computer bookstore I knew,
Computer Literacy.  For here it would be Barnes & Noble
NYC (33 E. 17th St).  You can pile up 4 years college worth
of books there and compare them all.
People have also raved about "Books Scientific" but I have
never been there.

John A.