
The Best Textbooks on Every Subject - Ibethewalrus
https://www.lesswrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-textbooks-on-every-subject
======
asafira
I have to admit that I have often disagreed with others over what textbooks
are best, but I think that's natural.

For one, you often start a field with a specific book. If you pour a lot of
time into that book, you often feel more attached to it. Then, when trying to
evaluate another textbook, it's hard (impossible?) to go through that same
experience and understand if you would have had an easier time with the
material. There are definitely some obvious cases, but it isn't always.

Second, sometimes people just have different learning styles and have a
preference for them. Landau and Lifshitz has a reputation for being very hard
(but rewarding!) to parse, and that is easily a showstopper for some people.
Other books might only have relatively easy exercises (Axler's Linear Algebra
Done Right, for example), which can help you gain a lot of confidence, while
others might have many very difficult or very tedious problems. Some might
have solutions to problems, some might not.

Really, I think the best we can do is put a list of "top books" for each
subject rather than the "best textbooks" for each subject.

~~~
lowken10
Learning styles is a myth..

[https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/13/teachers-n...](https://www.theguardian.com/education/2017/mar/13/teachers-
neuromyth-learning-styles-scientists-neuroscience-education)

I used to believe this nonsense myself.

~~~
simsla
My "learning style" is a consequence of my attention span (I've got ADD). I
tend to start thinking about tangents even (or especially) during the more
interesting lectures. After 30mins I'm often hopelessly lost. Books (or video
lectures for that matter) let me rewind when I "snap back" after those
tangents.

My main point being: maybe learning styles don't exist in the traditional
sense, but external factors (ADD being just one of them) can lead to another
type of "learning styles" that manifest in effectively the same way.

~~~
GolDDranks
Yeah, you two are talking about different things. "Learning styles is a myth"
refers to a very specific definition (that was used and defined in academic
literature) of learning styles.

It doesn't mean that people won't learn differentially. It just means that
specific model is wrong.

------
AJRF
How do I re-learn math up to a level just before say a US undergrad in Math?

I hated math when I was in secondary-school, but loved computers so did a
computer science course which was heavy-ish math in its final year.

Passed that course and now am in a pretty decent programming role, but I feel
like my maths is just built on such a shaky foundation that I maybe could
improve my programming and problem solving if I solidified the base.

Is there any one text book I could get which would teach me up to that level
of Math?

I suspect no, because Math is so broad, but generally if I could get an entire
pre-university schooling in Math I would be very happy.

~~~
Timpy
I'm glad you asked this question, and you worded it so well. I'm in the exact
same position and I was having trouble articulating my frustration. I've done
some Khan Academy but it's not congruent with my learning style I guess, I'd
like to find the right textbook for me.

~~~
ivan_ah
See my comment above where I plug my book.

Just out of curiosity, what was the problem with Khan Academy? Was it the
video format, the pace of explanations, or something else?

~~~
Timpy
Khan Academy has a lot of nice things going for it, but it seems like there's
a lot more presentation than there is practice. I don't care about the
gamification of learning. The practice problems, of which there are only a
few, are wrapped up into an interactive UX. I just want a bunch of problems
and solutions that I can work through.

Thanks for the recommendations, obviously the title of your book appeals to
me. I will check them out.

------
Daycrawler2
Not that I have specific issues with the recommendations there, but from a
conceptual standpoint, why should I trust recommendations on every subjects
from a centralized non-specialized site when I can search for sites
specialized in each subjects and take their recommendations on their own
subjects instead.

~~~
ipcac
If you input the term "discrete mathematics" in the search field "Books" on
Amazon, you get about 15 books (not counting the advertised ones) per page and
101 pages of those. If you slightly change criteria (change the search field
by subject or tweak the date or add another term to "discrete mathematics" or
...), you get even more hits (many more). This is essentially a bottomless
well. Most books found in this way (many of them incredibly good) will never
be found in the lists like that offered by OP for many reasons: lists like
that of OP favor 'classics", every month there's a new book on the market that
tries to outdo the existing ones, etc Many writers of the newer books are
aware of the existence of the classics (in fact, many had to learn from them),
so in their books they point out the pitfalls, fill in the holes, add more
details and make your learning experience all around more pleasant.

The books in the OP's list might not work for everyone, so you have to do your
own searching, sorting and analysis. This is especially true if you are a
self-learner and much more so if the subject you want to learn is math because
in math you are the one who has to prove every one of your assertions and be
as independent as possible.

tl; dr:

don't worry about the "expert opinion". Instead collect data, clean it,
analyze it and the consume the parts you need. That way you avoid 'expertise'
that comes bundled with traditionalisms, bureaucracy, calcified thinking and
other undesirable bullshit.

------
godelski
Some of the books it is comparing are in completely different classes. For
example it is comparing Griffiths Introduction to Electrodynamics and
Jackson's Electrodynamics.

You can't read Jackson if you haven't taken Griffiths or an equivalent!
Jackson is a graduate textbook whereas Griffiths is undergraduate. And if you
don't have a strong math background (knowing multivariate calculus and
differential equations) neither of those are recommended.

I think the hard thing about lists like this is that it doesn't specify who it
is best for. At least compare books on the same level...

~~~
Steuard
I was going to make exactly this same comment. (And the third text being
compared was _The Feynman Lectures_ , which is another entirely different sort
of book and level.) This was the example that made me decide that this list's
approach just wasn't useful the way that its author wanted it to be.

I could take a stab at an actual list like this with better organization by
recommending books for each course in the more or less standard undergraduate
core physics curriculum, but I'm sure different professors would make
different choices (and even for me, I know that my choices would be situation
dependent). It's a hard problem, and it doesn't translate well to the very
short summaries shown here.

~~~
ivan_ah
I'd love to hear which books you recommend for the core physics curriculum. I
started working on such a list[1], but I feel out of my depth for certain
courses because I did my UGRAD in Electrical Engineering and don't know the
physics UGRAD curriculum that well, let along provide recommendations.

[1] [https://github.com/minireference/structure-
api/blob/master/d...](https://github.com/minireference/structure-
api/blob/master/data/miniref/physics.yml)

~~~
godelski
You definitely have some stuff messed up in there. It is hard to know without
physically opening up books.

An example: Classical Mechanics.

Goldstein is the de facto graduate text on the subject.

I haven't used Hand, but what I could get with the "Surprise Me" feature on
Amazon, it looks like a Undergraduate text. I however used Marion and
Thornton[0].

There also seems to be some misunderstanding in HOW to order it too. Like you
have Mechanics in the beginning. What do you mean by that? The first round?
ie: not Classical Mechanics (Junior year). If so, those books are typically a
trifecta, containing: mechanics, E&M, some waves, and some modern. Those are
typically Young or Halliday and Resnik.

You also separate electricity and magnetism into different sections, in the
undergrad section. Why?

You have QM but don't have Griffiths? You have E&M but don't have Griffiths?

Why do you have Sakurai and don't specify which one?! If anything says
"Modern" in the title it is probably a graduate book. I can't see inside that
one but it is frequently bought with Jackson (E&M) and Goldstein, so I would
take a stab at it being a graduate text.

[0] [https://smile.amazon.com/Classical-Dynamics-Particles-
System...](https://smile.amazon.com/Classical-Dynamics-Particles-Systems-
Thornton/dp/8131518477/ref=sr_1_31?ie=UTF8&qid=1533212698&sr=8-31&keywords=classical+mechanics)

------
amorphous
The main idea from lesswrong is to prefer textbooks over other other books.

More related to software, I have another rule: read the official documentation
first before going somewhere else. Though often less polished than external
books, it comes from the creator and it usually worth the effort.

~~~
frou_dh
Good reminder.

The official Postgres manual instantly comes to mind whenever I think about
great documentation. There's just something about the way it's split up, and
especially the typical length of a leaf page, that makes it absurdly helpful.

[https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/index.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/index.html)

[https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/reference.html](https://www.postgresql.org/docs/10/static/reference.html)

~~~
idontpost
And the fact that you can usually find the exact page you want from Google is
nice. As a bonus, if google gives you the wrong version, that page links to
the same page for every other version too.

It's a joy.

------
Jtsummers
Anyone here read the "Thinking in Systems" book? systems thinking seems to be
surprisingly absent from many professional developers and engineers. Or, they
lack the ability to abstract properly beyond their specific domains. I'm
trying to improve this in my office and would like to find some books to hand
out to people (particularly some of the more promising young folks, influence
them before they get stuck in a bad mode of thought).

Based on the Amazon reviews it seems like it might be the sort of book I'm
looking for, I'll continue to check through those and for other reviews later.

~~~
carapace
It's an excellent book for folks who haven't been exposed to this stuff [1]
before, but it could be called "Cybernetics for Dummies" (I don't mean that in
a bad way!)

I can recommend "Feedback Control for Computer Systems" by Philipp Janert [2],
but the real underlying treasure is understanding Cybernetics. For that, try
"Introduction to Cybernetics" by W. Ross Ashby [3].

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Control_theory)

[2]
[http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920028970.do](http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920028970.do)

[3] PDF available from
[http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html](http://pespmc1.vub.ac.be/ASHBBOOK.html)

~~~
Jtsummers
I’ve read both your replies. I’ll check out your suggestions over the next few
weeks. Much appreciated.

------
memory_grep
On the neuroscience recommendation: I had been reading Principles of Neural
Science and decided to check out the recommendation, Neuroscience Exploring
the Brain, and it actually does seem much better written and more
informative/useful. Thanks for the link! Also, most of these texts are at
library genesis: [http://gen.lib.rus.ec/](http://gen.lib.rus.ec/)

------
andrepd
Here are mine, from my area of study (physics).

Quantum mechanics: Cohen-Tannoudji et al. Simply sublime. Read the first
chapter and you will understand the physics of quantum mechanics. Read the
second chapter and you will understand the mathematics. The rest of the book
is a reference of nearly every basic topic in nonrelativistic quantum
mechanics.

Classical Mechanics: Landau and Lifshitz. Simply my kind of book. Terse, to
the point, no faffing about, yet detailed and rich in discussion and physical
insight. In other words, does not say anything it doesn't need, and doesn't
omit anything that it shouldn't.

QFT: Peskin and Schroeder. The clearest introduction I found of this difficult
topic.

~~~
boxcardavin
You a fan of Boas? Still have Mathermatical Methods open on my desk here at
work.

~~~
andrepd
Never read that, I'm afraid. I used Arfken and Riley as my main practical
mathematical reference works, throughout my degree.

------
jccalhoun
I think the "best" is based on a lot of factors. I teach at a liberal arts
college so the "best" book for me is an OER book because I don't want to
charge my students for a book that some of them may not be able to afford. If
there is something wrong or lacking in the book I tell my students what I
think is right or missing.

What I use:

Public Speaking:
[http://www.publicspeakingproject.org/](http://www.publicspeakingproject.org/)

Intro to Comm: [http://kell.indstate.edu/public-comm-
intro/](http://kell.indstate.edu/public-comm-intro/) (I helped revise this and
edited together one of the chapter from existing OER chapters with my own
material)

Intro to Media Studies:
[http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=143](http://open.umn.edu/opentextbooks/BookDetail.aspx?bookId=143)

~~~
keithnz
I think most things that claim the "best" in categories which really don't
have "best"s is mainly for the clickbait. They often end up being like the
link... a recommendation with a bunch of other worthy recommendations

------
_emacsomancer_
But, for instance, the linguistics recommendation is seemingly based on the
remarks of one pseudo-anonymous commenter. And it's also hard to give such
general recommendations for large subjects. Even at a more generalist level,
do you want a really, really general overview of the broadest possible
coverage? Or do you want a slightly more focussed overview that actually gets
into somewhat more meaning information? Certainly for a course textbook, the
former type isn't very useful at all.

------
dooglius
As others have noted, a survey isn’t a good indicator of quality, as it has
more to do with what people learned from.

An approach I have used in the past: given a field F, find universities best
known in F, and see what textbooks they use in their courses.

------
akalin
For math and physics textbooks, I find the Chicago undergraduate
bibliographies quite useful: [https://github.com/ystael/chicago-ug-math-
bib](https://github.com/ystael/chicago-ug-math-bib) and
[https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicphys.htm](https://www.ocf.berkeley.edu/~abhishek/chicphys.htm)

~~~
nextos
Yes, in fact some recommendations at LW are odd:

"On analysis in Rn, orthonormal recommends Strichartz's The Way of Analysis
over Rudin's Principles of Mathematical Analysis and Kolmogorov & Fomin's
Introduction to Real Analysis."

Rudin or Kolmogorov & Fomin are waaaay more advanced than Strichartz. If they
wanted a more conceptual but still advanced book they could recommend e.g.
Hubbard & Hubbard which is a marvelous book IMHO. I'd put it on par with SICP
and CTM in terms of the enormous amount of ground it covers and the insights a
novel reader can get.

------
pash
I’m a big fan of reading textbooks. I tend to buy and read several texts on
the subjects that interest me most, and then continually to revisit each of
them as my experience and knowledge in the subject broadens and deepens.

But I feel like this sort of list is basically misguided, because the textbook
that best suits a reader depends crucially on (a) the reader’s particular
background and (b) the reader’s goals in learning a subject. Every textbook on
a particular subject is written for a different target audience and emphasizes
different aspects of the subject, so in addition to trying to identify overall
quality of exposition, prospective readers should try to identify the text
that best suits their knowledge and interests as they sit down to read. And
after reading one text, a reader’s knowledge and interest in the subject
should have changed substantially: his or her interest may be exhausted, but
if it’s piqued the reader should then move on to another text that covers the
subject more deeply or from a different perspective.

In short, there is no such thing as a “best” textbook. There are good and bad
texts, but they’re good and bad for different readers. Well, there are some
texts that are just bad and will be bad for just about any reader, but the
good ones are all good only for a certain subset of readers whose background
in the subject and its prerequisites, and whose goals in learning it, best
match what the author had in mind (or implicitly assumes).

~~~
JamesBarney
> But I feel like this sort of list is basically misguided, because the
> textbook that best suits a reader depends crucially on (a) the reader’s
> particular background and (b) the reader’s goals in learning a subject.

This is why the list was great you got to read a bunch of reviews that didn't
just talk about one book but compared them. With people making lots of
comments about what they got out of each textbook.

------
molteanu
Spivak's Calculus, oh, the memories! Logic at its finest. Definitely a nice
maths book, as _it is the place to learn how logical reasoning combined with
fundamental concepts can be developed into a rigorous mathematical theory
rather than a bunch of tools and techniques learned by rote_.

Combine with the oldish, but still unbeatable in their clarity and charisma,
video lectures by Herbert Gross and you can have tons of pure, free fun.

~~~
resource0x
Herbert Gross' videos - absolutely amazing work of art. Nostalgic sentiment as
a bonus :)

------
jimrandomh
Alternate link with better caching:
[https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-
bes...](https://www.greaterwrong.com/posts/xg3hXCYQPJkwHyik2/the-best-
textbooks-on-every-subject)

------
z_open
I tried reading the modern quantum mechanics book, but it seems very difficult
off the bat. Seems like there is a lot they expect you to have a very heavy
physics background already. I have a major in mechanical engineering and a
minor in math so I figured I had enough to work my way through it, but I don't
know any more. Anyone have a recommendation for a book that can ease me into
it a little better?

~~~
weichi
I've read Griffiths, most of Shankar, some of Sakurai, and some of Feynman.

Of those, I would say Griffiths is the best option for someone with your
background. It's short enough that you have some hope of going through the
entire book, and it has you doing real calculations. The writing is good.

Shankar has lots of good stuff, but its 600+ pages long, so a bit
overwhelming. I also found the explanations not as clear as in Griffiths.

The perspective in Feynman and Sakurai is quite different than in Griffiths,
and it is possibly a better approach. But Sakurai is much more challenging
than Griffiths and not nearly as well written. Feynman lacks the worked
examples and exercises that Griffiths has, so is not (IMO) appropriate as your
sole textbook, but definitely worth looking at for the different perspective.
A text taking the Feynman (or Sakurai) approach, but at the length and level
of Griffiths, would be valuable.

(I taught myself basic QM prior to going to grad school in physics, with a
background similar to your, so I have some direct experience here. This was
about 12 years ago. Perhaps there are better options now.)

------
cryptozeus
As per author's recommendation I checked the alibris website for books on
other subjects. Unfortunately top books in programming are C/Java/Algo &
Cracking interview.

[https://www.alibris.com/search/books/subject/Computers-
Progr...](https://www.alibris.com/search/books/subject/Computers-Programming)

------
aj7
On electrodynamics, madhadron recommends Purcell's Electricity and Magnetism
over Griffith's Introduction to Electrodynamics, Feynman's Lectures on
Physics, and others. Right on!!

------
fencepost
I don't want the "best" textbook in a subject any more than I want the "best"
editor[0]. "Best" is a really big judgement call.

I want "widely accepted as great" or maybe even "good." Great or Good books
may not cover exactly the same material, but any given one is likely to cover
most of the material (all of the material that author/team considers most
important) and avoid mistakes.

[0] Vim, Emacs, Sublime2, Sublime3, Atom, VSCode, Scintilla-based stuff,
various IDEs, etc.

------
ljw1001
This book isn't a text book, and doesn't want to be, but for Fourier Analysis,
"Who is Fourier? A Mathematical Adventure" provides an introduction to the
subject that, IMO, few books can match: [https://www.amazon.com/Who-Fourier-
Mathematical-Adventure-2n...](https://www.amazon.com/Who-Fourier-Mathematical-
Adventure-2nd/dp/0964350432)

------
resource0x
I would add "The Jazz Piano Book" by Mark Levine - for anyone learning music
theory, even if you happen to hate jazz

------
8bitsrule
In which 'Every' means a very limited subset of {EVERY}

------
mettamage
This will help a little, but if you scour HN, then you get the wisdom of
crowds. Today I found a really short succinct book on ASP.net, it was exactly
what I was looking for!

------
zem
surprised not to see morrison and boyd get a mention in the organic chemistry
sector, at least as a contender. that was my pick for outstanding textbook
across my entire academic career; they just presented the material so much
better than i'd seen anyone else do on the topic.

------
drdrey
Any recommendations for exercise physiology textbooks?

------
carapace
"Art of Electronics" Horowitz and Hill

------
xenihn
Can anyone weigh in on the math recommendations?

~~~
Karrot_Kream
For Algebra, I'd rather recommend Aluffi's "Algebra Chapter 0". The
prerequisites are maybe a passing knowledge of some algebra, but mostly start
with fundamentals and develop the concepts through explanation and then
interesting exercises. It's a joy to work through, but can occasionally be
tough.

For Analysis, I'd rather recommend Tao's "Analysis I". Tao has the style that
I really enjoy where he uses a mix of intuition and light mathematical
maturity to build basic Analysis from first principles. Not everyone benefits
from this approach, but if you're the person who enjoys discussing and
debating with the author as you develop the fundamentals, then Tao's Analysis
is fantastic.

~~~
Koshkin
Aluffi's book switches to the language of category theory way too early. The
best introductory yet "serious" book on abstract algebra is _A first course_
by Fraleigh; for topology, the book by Munkres is at the same level.

~~~
Karrot_Kream
I preferred that approach, personally. I felt the categorical treatment led to
a bit more unified insight rather than treading each of the cases as
independent with similarities we just "take note".

------
maerF0x0
> On business, joshkaufman recommends Kaufman's The Personal MBA: Master the
> Art of Business over Bevelin's Seeking Wisdom and Munger's Poor Charlie's
> Alamanack.

What a rat. Recommends his own book over two others. This is exactly what is
wrong with University textbook selection. They're often just picking their
friends, or someone who picked their textbook. Crooked and corrupt.

~~~
ProAm
> Crooked and corrupt.

It's just business. Every business does it. Get used to it. Have an iPhone are
forced to buy things from the App Store? Crooked and corrupt...? Bought a
Tesla and cant use it for independent ride sharing? Crooked and corrupt? It's
just business.

~~~
77pt77
> Bought a Tesla and cant use it for independent ride sharing

Come again?

~~~
ProAm
[1] [https://www.techtimes.com/articles/183320/20161022/no-
ridesh...](https://www.techtimes.com/articles/183320/20161022/no-ridesharing-
tesla-bans-drivers-from-using-tesla-cars-for-uber-or-lyft.htm)

------
vladsanchez
Clickbait!

------
fady
The link does not work for me. Anyone else having the same issue?

~~~
habryka
(Main Dev of site here: Sorry for that! I should really get around to setting
up autoscaling. Site should now be properly available again.)

~~~
NoahTheDuke
While I have your ear, any reason why the Be Happier post[0] isn't loading
anymore? Loading it through the Wayback Machine it shows that the author
deleted their account. Did you folks decide to hide those posts? I only ask
cuz it's my favorite post on the whole site.

[0]:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20180220101251/http://lesswrong....](https://web.archive.org/web/20180220101251/http://lesswrong.com/lw/bq0/be_happier/)

~~~
Discordius
Yeah, the old Reddit codebase was super inconsistent about how it marked
deleted and "soft-deleted" posts, and so we erred on the site of deleting
stuff to not accidentally deanonymize someone.

But now that you remind me of that, I think we now have the relevant
technology and understanding of the old DB to make it do the correct thing. I
will give it a shot in the next few days.

~~~
NoahTheDuke
That's awesome news. Good luck!

------
bronlund
This is stupid. Using popular vote to find best quality :D

