favourite technical books

[TomKatt]

While not reference materials per se, I learned quite a bit about digital circuits from Steve Ciarcia's 'Circuit Cellar' articles in BYTE Magazine...   I eventually bought the book compilation and built my first Persistence of Vision project in the late 80's.  His projects were a great foundation for the microcontroller boom that came years later with the PIC and AVR.

In the same vain, Don Lancaster's TTL Cookbook (+ CMOS Cookbook) were great resources for learning digital circuits.  Still have those buried somewhere.

[EddieLane]

Slightly over 1000 tomes in print and around 24xx as Ebooks (excluding appnotes, FMs, TMs etc.) and all listed (including the appnotes, FMs, TMs etc.).
 
But several GB and also several stacks of copied paper remain to process.
 

Just some highlights which have helped me much:

- the complete, 6-volume set of the Telefunken Laborbuch Series
- Handbuch der Elektronik, T. Adamowicz et.al., Franzis 1979 (much on RF topics)
- of course, the big Nuehrmann (Werkbuch der Elektronik)
- Sylvia Goldsmith, Real-Time Systems Development
- On SW topics also Knuths 'Basic Algorithms' and the masive 'Software Engineers' Reference Book'
- Tool Engineers Handbook,McGraw-Hill 1959
- Mechanisms and mechanical devices sourcebook, Sclater/Chironis
- Schaltungsaufgaben in der fernschreib- und Signaltechnik, Siemens (magnetic counters, logic and dividers!)
- the excellect Thiemig series on nuclear instrumentation
- and much much more on pulse power techniques, EMI/EMC/EW, SRMQ, Aerospace electronics, electromechanics

For RF and EW topics, always look out for the stuff from Artech House (UK). And several of the IET-published works are also indespensable.

I already saw that several of you keep the Electronics' engineers handbook (Fink/Christiansen) on their shelves - this was one of the first expensive books which I got (I was around 16). It is excellent - an no pirated scan or OCR seems to exist! And it's great that now we can find so many books and other sources on the internet, and some of them are free. I have to read and write a lot so informational sources are beneficial for me. Some time ago, I was writing one paper, and this page provided me with free essay examples on management, which helped me with a paper for my extra course. And it saves me so much time and effort. Several company-published technical pocketbooks are also real pearls.Like the 'Teldix Taschenbuch der Navigation' or the 'SEL pocketbook'. Always be on the lookout for such!
Maybe I can sometime later give another few examples of outstanding works.

And which of this book you'd recommend to read first of all?

[Smokey]

Slightly over 1000 tomes in print and around 24xx as Ebooks (excluding appnotes, FMs, TMs etc.) and all listed (including the appnotes, FMs, TMs etc.).
 
But several GB and also several stacks of copied paper remain to process.
 

Just some highlights which have helped me much:

- the complete, 6-volume set of the Telefunken Laborbuch Series
- Handbuch der Elektronik, T. Adamowicz et.al., Franzis 1979 (much on RF topics)
- of course, the big Nuehrmann (Werkbuch der Elektronik)
- Sylvia Goldsmith, Real-Time Systems Development
- On SW topics also Knuths 'Basic Algorithms' and the masive 'Software Engineers' Reference Book'
- Tool Engineers Handbook,McGraw-Hill 1959
- Mechanisms and mechanical devices sourcebook, Sclater/Chironis
- Schaltungsaufgaben in der fernschreib- und Signaltechnik, Siemens (magnetic counters, logic and dividers!)
- the excellect Thiemig series on nuclear instrumentation
- and much much more on pulse power techniques, EMI/EMC/EW, SRMQ, Aerospace electronics, electromechanics

For RF and EW topics, always look out for the stuff from Artech House (UK). And several of the IET-published works are also indespensable.

I already saw that several of you keep the Electronics' engineers handbook (Fink/Christiansen) on their shelves - this was one of the first expensive books which I got (I was around 16). It is excellent - an no pirated scan or OCR seems to exist! Several company-published technical pocketbooks are also real pearls.Like the 'Teldix Taschenbuch der Navigation' or the 'SEL pocketbook'. Always be on the lookout for such!
Maybe I can sometime later give another few examples of outstanding works.

And which of this book you'd recommend to read first of all?

Better learn german!

I have "Mechanisms and mechanical devices sourcebook".  I like this one for it's "fun" value.  Its like a picture book for mechanically curious adults.  Often times a brain twister as you try to figure out how a mechanism works from a single line drawing.

[Benta]

Better learn german!

I have "Mechanisms and mechanical devices sourcebook".  I like this one for it's "fun" value.  Its like a picture book for mechanically curious adults.  Often times a brain twister as you try to figure out how a mechanism works from a single line drawing.

Yes, there's a wealth of books in German (I'm in the fortunate position of being able to read both English and German), but certainly also in Spanish, Italian, French, Russian etc. where I lack the linguistic skills.
The book you mention sounds a bit like "Rube Goldberg", I hope it isn't. 
But we all love real books. Great!

[Smokey]

Amazon has a preview.  https://www.amazon.com/Mechanisms-Mechanical-Devices-Sourcebook-5th/dp/0071704426

[pdenisowski]

Yes, there's a wealth of books in German (I'm in the fortunate position of being able to read both English and German), but certainly also in Spanish, Italian, French, Russian etc. where I lack the linguistic skills.

When I was an undergraduate, a "serious" STEM major (although they didn't call it "STEM" back then) would typically take a "xxxx" for reading knowledge" course, where "xxxx" was either German or Russian.  There was a lot of good stuff being published in those languages, and in the pre-computer/pre-internet age you would be missing out on many advancements in your field unless you could read at least one of those languages. 

[Smokey]

Someone recently mentioned "High Speed Digital Design: A Handbook of Black Magic".  I picked up an ebay copy.  Good stuff.  Would recommend to a friend. 

[RJSV]

   'Practical Clock Escapements'.    By Laurie Penman
It's another 20 years older now, but that book for me represents a bit of return to mechanical devices and engineered futuristic 'nanotechnology' devices.  (Even though that book kept the topic on regular clocks.)

   That book was a sort of symbol, there in the office room, surrounded by mechanical prototypes of computer subsystems.  Besides, it provided a needed practical grounding, reality check, as I (struggled) to understand the details in the book.  Had a pleasant and interesting talk with the book's author, Mr. Penman himself, who I recall was a mechanical engineer.