favourite technical books

[Smokey]

Just musing...
Are all you guys aware of the value of the books on your shelves?
Many are out of print, and many are still available, but they all still cost 50...150$ apiece.
And they're of a quality (content-wise) that no web site can match.
My message to good engineers: "Put your money where your mouth is" and take care of and extend your library... and leave the "allaboutcircuits" websites to the amateurs.
EEVBlog excepted, of course, because here's where the owners, and more importantly: readers) of those books are present.

I should really catalog all the books on the shelves here.  That would be an interesting list.

I love adding new books to my technical library.  Ebay is absolutely amazing for $5-$10 books with WAY more than $5-$10 worth of value.  Sometimes I feel like my mailman must think I'm running a used book business or something.

[Sal Ammoniac]

I have many books in my collection, such as The Art of Electronics, in both printed form and eBook form. Mostly for convivence. I use the printed books at home and the eBook versions on the road.

[Benta]

Bob Pease, "Troubleshooting Analog Circuits" is also on my shelf. Personal present.
Great guy, we had him at a company engineer's meeting as speaker. Had dinner with him afterwards, the discussion was very stimulating and often surprising. But a totally "down-to-earth" type, one of the most sane and conscious persons I've ever met. It was a nice evening.

[Neomys Sapiens]

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.

[gbaddeley]

For pre-transistor general & practical electronics tech, it is hard to go past Radiotron Designers Handbook, 4th Ed. I also have Ed. 1, 2, 3 for curiosity sake. The RCA tube handbooks are also very good.

[TomKatt]

I miss the days you could get IC data books for free from the manufacturers...  I had volumes of TI and National Semi books - and built countless circuits from the example schematics. 

And while I may not refer to them much any longer, I wouldn't have got to where I am without Forrest Mims and those pocket engineer books 

But I would second 'The Art of Electronics' - the master reference.

[pdenisowski]

I wouldn't have got to where I am without Forrest Mims

Those books are some of the best introductory electronics texts I've ever seen. 

I took advantage of the employee discount at Radio Shack to complete my collection

[armandine2]

another vote for Ladybird book of?

[IdahoMan]

My grandfather's old Basic Electricity NAVPERS book.

Ex:


Straight-forward, step-by-step, and NO flip'n SI-units.

[Smokey]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

[TimFox]

My grandfather's old Basic Electricity NAVPERS book.

Ex:


Straight-forward, step-by-step, and NO flip'n SI-units.

The source of many a novice's complaint about "negative" current flow direction.
Volts and Amperes are SI units--many physics textbooks use "Gaussian" cgs units instead, with "statvolts" and "statamperes".
Otherwise, good practical series of texts.

[exe]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

Not yet, but looking closely. Esp. if there is something cheap, or there is an e-book. Why are you askin'?)

[IdahoMan]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

Close.

I'm thinking of getting an ARRL Handbook of a good year.

[Smokey]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

Not yet, but looking closely. Esp. if there is something cheap, or there is an e-book. Why are you askin'?)

There have been a fair number of times I've seen someone here talking about how much they like some piece of test equipment, or how much good information is in some book, and I've gone straight to ebay and seen that thing selling for way less money than the actual value it has to me.  I love that we live in a world where that's possible on a normal person's budget.  Books are the perfect example of this.  Often times so cheap vs their potential value.  Just curious who else does that.

[exe]

Just curious who else does that.

The books I'm looking for are expensive, and usually not on sale in the country I live .

Though there is one exception to this: ARRL. There were tons of them on the ham radio flea market. I bought the one from the 1954 (21st edition). I paid 5euros for it, though originally it cost $3 (that's written right on the front cover). So, kinda overaid, but I wasn't in the mood to argue over 5euros). Sadly, I don't read it, it just collects dust on the shelf.

[alm]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

I ordered some National Semiconductor and Linear Technology application handbooks, as mentioned by tautech and David Hess, that were available cheaply. I like to have this information printed. National has the bad habit of removing app notes of devices that are no longer available from their website, even though it may contain concepts that are still relevant. Like a few app notes written by Jim Williams when he worked for National. I'm guessing they won't break into my house to tear out pages from printed books . I also bought "Soul of a New Machine" mentioned by PlainName, since it looked like a fun read.

[Benta]

The books I'm looking for are expensive, and usually not on sale in the country I live .

According to your flag, you live in one of the richest and most privileged countries in the world.
Hopefully your post is meant as a joke...

[PlainName]

I also bought "Soul of a New Machine"

Do let us know what you think of it.

[CatalinaWOW]

Book prices are crazy today.  I bought my copy of Ramo, Whinnery and Van Duzer as an undergrad.  The price stamped in the fronts piece is $12.50 (USD).  Then a decade later in grad school one of the courses required the same book.  Went to the bookstore and found that it wasn't t a new edition so I didn't need to purchase another.  Good thing since the price was up near $80.  It is more now.  But strangely enough old editions of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and Machinery's Handbook are quite reasonable.  And quite useful as the have data and recipes not found in more recent editions.  Base diagrams for vacuum tubes for example.
.

[rdl]

I got this years ago for just $5 including FedEx shipping. It actually came from Digi-Key. I don't know if they still sell a hard copy version, but you can download a pdf for free if you have a TI account (or do a internet search). It's full of useful info related to electronics in general not just for analog.

[armandine2]

How many of you have already bought at least one book after someone mentioned it in this thread?

I got a second edition of Ramo et al and the GE Transistor Manual 

[pdenisowski]

I'm thinking of getting an ARRL Handbook of a good year.

I usually buy the latest copy every few years, but mostly just as a way to support the league   The content does change from year to year and I do think they are getting better over time, but I think any edition from the previous 10 years doesn't differ much from the current edition in terms of basic content.

In my opinion, the ARRL handbook, and many of their other publications, are some of the best resources for electronics hobbyists.  The RSGB books are also nice, but I think they tend to be more focused on the builder / experimenter (i.e. people who already have some experience in electronics)

[pdenisowski]

Book prices are crazy today. 

College textbooks and "professional" books (like Artech House) have never been cheap.  What's crazy now is that the used book market is drying up:  I used to be able to pick up older (current edition -1 or -2) electronics books for just a few dollars, and now they are often priced almost the same as a new book!  (This is true, in my experience, for non-technical books as well).

But strangely enough old editions of the CRC Handbook of Chemistry and Physics and Machinery's Handbook are quite reasonable. 

When I was in high-school, CRC used to sell new copies of the previous year's handbook at a steep discount (like, 80-90% off) to students.  Still have my copy

[TimFox]

Back when the publisher was still called "The Chemical Rubber Co.", we nicknamed their Handbook "The Rubber Bible".

[CatalinaWOW]

When I was in high-school, CRC used to sell new copies of the previous year's handbook at a steep discount (like, 80-90% off) to students.  Still have my copy

Yeah, they were doing that in my day also, and I still have my copy.  A bit shop worn, but still useful and sometimes quicker than Google.  The two books to the right of the Chemical Bible are worth discussing.  I have found the Handbook of Mathematical Functions extremely useful.  Tables of values allow checking accuracy of functions in libraries I am using and also anything I am generating.  And rational approximations allow quick computations when appropriate.  The Handbook of Physics on the other hand has been a complete bust for me.  Don't know if the book is fundamentally flawed, or if my brain is too aligned to the engineering side of things but I have gotten little value out of it.  Too bad, since I paid full price for that one.

The next picture shows a group of old handbooks I have acquired, some in the last year.  They, along with a 30th addition CRC have all cost just a few dollars.

The next pictures show some of the harder hitting parts of my bookshelves.  Almost all of the books in the pictures are used regularly.  A few are worth special mention.  In the first picture, Numerical Methods is a fine book to understand numerical differentiation and integration, how they are applied in simulation and how quantization error can be propagated and how it can be minimized.  In the second picture, Discrete Techniques in Parameter Estimation by Jerry Mendel has proved far more useful than I ever dreamed when I took the course.  The world is seldom so kind as to provide you with noise and error free data, or with simple linear behavior.  Having tools to deal with it is widely useful.