Unlike many other programming languages, which are often picked up on the go from tutorials found on the Internet, few are able to quickly pick up C++ without studying a well-written C++ book. It is way too big and complex for doing this. In fact, it is so big and complex, that there are very many very bad C++ books out there. And we are not talking about bad style, but things like sporting glaringly obvious factual errors and promoting abysmally bad programming styles.
Smart pointers implies C++, which is not the right answer.
https://stackoverflow.com/questions/388242/the-definitive-c-book-guide-and-list
Considering that most of the “answers” I’ve found on StackOverflow were complete dogshit, I’m wary of this reading list