When I was learning C, I loved Plauger's book on the standard library for just that reason; it's very informative to be guided through the implementation of the whole thing, not only to see how it works, but it's also a good way just to be introduced to everything in it without any magic. It's an excellent 2nd book on C, I think.
I discovered a little book by him after wading thru recursive descent parsers chapter by Herb Schildt... I don't want to get down on Schildt, I enjoyed that too, he showed some cool stuff..
but Plauger had me thinking that programming could be a craft, an art, a noble intellectual pursuit.
