I'm beginning a book discussion with my fellow developers, and the first book on the slate is The Pragmatic Programmer. Several members of our QC team have expressed interest in these discussions, and I'm wondering if there's an equivalent book for software testers. These folks aren't necessarily programmers (though some have some background), so books that focus on programming techniques for testing may not be useful.
Any advice would be appreciated.
Why wouldn't this be useful to them directly?
The best testers I have worked with were former programmers and have insight into how programmers think and how they build applications.
Testers work on products created by programmers, so understanding how programmers work and how software is designed and constructed is essential in order for a tester to focus on breaking code and finding bugs.
Additionally, with many automated software testing tools, testers do program. Testers who write automated test scripts can benefit from good software design practices as much as any programmer can.
You might want to browse around the other titles in the Pragmatic Bookshelf. Maybe Pragmatic Unit Testing?
Even if you're not in a whole-hog Agile shop, I think you'll find Agile Testing by Lisa Crispin and Janet Gregory to have some of the most practical and helpful advice regarding testing. They've done a great job of combining real-world experience with a helpful collation of testing concepts (such as Brian Marick's Four Quandrants of Testing).