His _Compiler Construction_ book (http://www-old.oberon.ethz.ch/WirthPubl/CBEAll.pdf) is a good "keep it simple, hit the ground running" intro to recursive-descent parsing, compilers, virtual machines, etc., as well.
Is this a book you'd recommend for somebody wanting to learn compilers and parsers? I did my masters in computer science but focused on the machine learning, AI, and data mining side of things. I feel that I'm lacking a lot from never taking a compliers class and would like to make up for that with a good book. (I did study automata theory).
Yes, among others. Briefly: Read that, then Appel's _Modern Compiler Implementation in ML_, then chase whatever interests you in the bibliography and on citeseer.
The best way to learn is probably to start writing a simple compiler. For example write a compiler for finite automata to C (or assembly if you want a bigger challenge), since you studied automata theory.
