Two books with distinctive approaches: (1) tearing down and (2) building up.
(1) Bryan Bergeron, ‘Teardowns: Learn How Electronics Work by Taking Them Apart’ (2010, McGraw-Hill)
Preview at
https://books.google.com/books?id=9GwDb1ELd2sC&printsec=frontcover#v=onepage&q&f=falseDevices featured are not as exotic as the test equipment in Dave’s videos, but if you like the guided-tour approach with lots of commentary on components and circuit functions, along with some design critique, it’s well worth looking at. Items covered (or uncovered) include smoke alarms, motion-activated lights, surge protectors, ultrasonic humidifiers, stereo amplifiers, analog VOM. There are also three chapters on electric guitars + effects pedals + tube amps.
(2) Abraham Marcus and William Marcus, ‘Elements of Radio’ (multiple editions: 1943, 1948, 1953, 1959, 1965, 1973)
1953 edition:
https://babel.hathitrust.org/cgi/pt?id=coo.31924004082834Unfortunately I can’t find a PDF version of a more recent edition of this book online (it’s not to be confused with Marcus’s ‘Elements of Radio Servicing’, which is easier to track down). I have the 6th edition (1973), which is divided into two parts. Part 1 describes, using little or no math, how to build a simple crystal radio and then, step by step, turn it into a superheterodyne AM receiver. Part 2 is a more technical (i.e., some equations, but still introductory) discussion of DC, AC, inductance, capacitance, impedance, resonance, etc.
The catch is that the book was first published in 1943 and the superheterodyne receiver is built around vacuum tubes. Later editions (6th, 1973; 5th, 1965 [I think; it's got a picture of Telstar on the cover . . .]) add some chapters on semiconductors and show how a tube receiver can be turned into a transistor receiver, but the bulk of the book is tube-oriented. Nevertheless, the book’s strategy of introducing a basic circuit and improving and refining it, with fulsome explanations of each change and plenty of circuit diagrams, is extremely effective in communicating both the how and the why at every stage of development. As a result, the discussions of tubes are valuable because they are lessons in basic theory, not explanations of an older technology that many beginners have little interest in learning. And if you are reading a more recent edition of the book, the presentation of transistors neatly builds on the earlier presentation of tubes.
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