The Big Book of Knitting Stitch Patterns contains over 286 designs, covering everything from lace to cables to textured stitches to basic knit/purl. It contains both charts and written directions, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to either design their own patterns or customize written ones. ( )

Ok- this book is exactly what it sounds like. It doesn't contain any garment patterns or technique instructions. It is simply a giant book containing pages and pages of stitch patterns: cables, textured stitches like berry-in-a-box or herringbone, lace stitches or colorwork stitches, such as tweeds. Each stitch has a color photograph of a sample, and the stitch patterns are (so far) extremely accurate. The variety is exceptional, ranging from subtle to exceptionally complex. It doesn't teach you how to adapt the patterns for shaping, but this sort of resource never does, in my experience.
Overall, an excellent archive of stitches. ( )