Final project recommendations.

Authors
Donald Norman
Ben Shneiderman
Jared Spool
Jakob Nielsen
Steve Krug
Edward Tufte
Alan Cooper
Jenifer Tidwell
Dan Saffer

Also, searching through Amazon for usability and interaction/interactive design produces a lot of good results.

Designers
Yves Béhar
Henry Dreyfuss
Jonathan Ives

Design Firms, Software Companies, and Academic Institutions
IDEO
frog Design
Teague
Nokia
Apple
Microsoft
Method
MIT Media Lab
Stanford's d-School
Art Center's Media Design Program
University of Maryland's HCI Lab
Interaction Design Institute
UW's DX ARTS Program
Carnegie Mellon University
Royal College of Art
Illinois Institute of Technology