[dmitrykoval]

It always amazes me how people keep recommending CLRS as an interview preparation material. If you haven't studied Algorithms before it will take months to go through material in this book, leave alone making exercises. It is a serious textbook with strong mathematical rigor. If you have studied algos, granted, you would know what book to pick as a refresher and chances are - CLRS would be on your table. I think Sedgewick's book would be a more practical choice as a first book to learn some data structures/algorithms.