What is a good book for learning about this subject? Knuth's? Any other recommendations?
http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~vazirani/algorithms.html
for their intro algorithms class. I TA'd a semester with this book, and while it definitely has its warts it is much more compact and readable than CLRS.
I've also heard The Algorithm Design Manual recommended, although I haven't read it and don't own a copy. http://www.amazon.com/Algorithm-Design-Manual-Steven-Skiena/...