Ask HN: What's the best textbook you've read? - lainon
======
simon_acca
"Best" is a vague metric, but one textbook I am always happy to recommend is
the Princeton Companion to Mathematics.

The book is a selective review of the most significant ideas in maths and
mathematical research. The great editorial process is what sets this book
apart from the rest: each chapter is authored by an outstanding expert in
his/her particular field (among which several fields medalist the likes of
Terence Tao) and the editing by Timothy Gowers does an amazing job of
uniforming the tone, notation and rigor across the whole text.

The authors were evidently chosen also for their communication skills since
the articles come across as quite discoursive and really convey the beauty of
modern maths.

In the book you'll find not only the articles on mathematical concepts, but
also an introduction to modern mathematics, chapters on the relationship of
maths with other sciences, a thorough history of mathematics and a collection
of biographies of famous mathematicians.

Well recommended to anybody with an interest in maths. My background is in CS
and I found it approachable (except minor sections) and illuminating!

~~~
decasteve
I read almost all of it cover to cover when I was an undergrad in math, when I
still had intention of going to grad school, to get a sense of which area(s)
of math I'd like to pursue further.

It is incredibly illuminating and I also recommend it highly.

------
bewe42
SICP

In case you didn't know, have a look at
[http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subj...](http://lesswrong.com/lw/3gu/the_best_textbooks_on_every_subject/)

~~~
stuxnet79
This has been recommended a lot. I'm gonna buy it on Amazon and work through
it slowly.

~~~
Buttons840
SICP is online for free (legally) from MIT's website, or there are some
community version with cleaner layout. See:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13918465](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13918465)

I've only worked through Chapter 1. The text is interesting, but most of my
learning has come from the exercises. You should plan to do the exercises.
Also, don't worry if you have to skip a few exercises and come back to them
later. Don't allow yourself to be bogged down and loose interest over a single
difficult exercise.

~~~
bewe42
yes, no need to buy it.

and you are right, the value lies in the exercises. I started doing them in
Clojure. I recommend doing as many as you can and then you'll find plenty of
solutions online to compare your results. It's worth it

------
indescions_2018
Have been recommending CASI to everyone who listens.

Everyone has their own unique datasets. And anyone can install data science
platforms such as Anacondas. But being able to map a particular algorithm to
the inference you wish to make. And understanding, from a historical context,
precisely what that inferences means at a philosophical level. That is where
this text will assist on your path to mastery.

Computer Age Statistical Inference

[https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/CASI/](https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/CASI/)

------
kuang_eleven
Introduction of Quantum Mechanics and Introduction to Electrodynamics, both by
David J. Griffiths. He also wrote Introduction to Elementary Particles, but I
have not read that one.

Both books masterfully take exceptionally complex fields and break them down
into easily digested chunks, with a clear progression of ideas as you go
through the book. Do note that these are "Introduction" books written for
Junior/Senior Physics majors.

~~~
kuang_eleven
You should also have a _solid_ background in calculus before fully
understanding these books. Typically, Physics majors take every undergrad
calculus class offered in the math dept. at a college, then a few more in
Physics just to be sure.

~~~
iamatworknow
I'd say if you have a basic understanding of calculus (derivatives and
integrals), you could get though Griffiths' books with another companion book,
like what my college used: [https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-
Physical-Science...](https://www.amazon.com/Mathematical-Methods-Physical-
Sciences-Mary/dp/0471198269)

I'm still upset that my copies of Griffiths' texts were stolen my senior year
of college...

~~~
kuang_eleven
Yeah, I could see that. Mostly, you need to be really comfortable with
multivariable integration.

------
yesenadam
_Visual Complex Analysis_ \- Needham. A lot of great pictures, exerything is
explained (and _shown_ ) geometrically. Complex differentiation/integration,
non-Euclidean geometry, vector fields etc.

 _Mathematics and its History_ \- Stillwell. Wonderfully written. From the
ancients to the 20th century, covers the mathematics (in a lot of detail) and
lives of major mathematicians (potted bios).

 _Concrete Mathematics_ \- Knuth et al. Discrete maths, number theory,
generating functions, covers most of the maths that pops up continually in
programming.

 _All You Wanted To Know About Mathematics But Were Afraid To Ask. Mathematics
for Science Students_ 2 Vols. - Louis Lyons. Pretty basic, but covers all the
mathematical basics for physics. (1st year uni level I guess) I learned a lot
from this years ago, I still consult it as a reference. It's a pleasure to
read.

Also, all of Hamming's books.

~~~
vinchuco
re:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991373](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15991373)

[https://github.com/papers-we-love/papers-we-love](https://github.com/papers-
we-love/papers-we-love)

~~~
yesenadam
Ohh! Thank you! :-) So kind of you.

------
gabriel
Lisp in Small Pieces:
[https://pages.lip6.fr/Christian.Queinnec/WWW/LiSP.html](https://pages.lip6.fr/Christian.Queinnec/WWW/LiSP.html)

An excellent and very fun read about compilation, interpretation, and
programming semantics.

I don’t think you already have to know LISP, although there isn’t an
introduction, but if you know any programming it would be enough to pick up
the programs that are used as examples. Source code from the book is available
and you will end up programming as you move along and it is a delight to see
yourself make a program that can interpret another program.

~~~
ghosthamlet
There is: Clojure in Small Pieces，[http://daly.axiom-
developer.org/clojure.pdf](http://daly.axiom-developer.org/clojure.pdf)

------
matt_the_bass
The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill

It covers nearly all aspects of electronics both theory and practice. It’s
still relevant after all these years.

~~~
Hockenbrizzle
I didn't learn electronics with this book, but I really wish I did. I used it
to give tutorials for an undergraduate electronics course for physics students
and it was immensely useful and well organized.

~~~
matt_the_bass
The work book that goes along with it is also top notch.

------
colanderman
Strang's Linear Algebra:
[http://math.mit.edu/~gs/linearalgebra/](http://math.mit.edu/~gs/linearalgebra/)

Concise, clear, thorough. Strang is a great author.

~~~
yesenadam
I watched so far the first 7 or 8 lectures on youtube of his linear algebra
course. (Which something like a million people have watched) He's such a great
lecturer, extremely impressive. So mysteriously good it makes me wonder what
it is about them that seem so good. He says somewhere about how he gets a lot
of mail thanking him, that people appreciate that he's _on their side_. It's
just done with _what the experience is like for the student_ always in mind.
Sounds simple, but there are plenty of lecture/course videos on youtube where
that obviously wasn't given a thought.

------
drdrey
Computability and Complexity by Neil Jones:
[http://www.diku.dk/~neil/comp2book2007/book-
whole.pdf](http://www.diku.dk/~neil/comp2book2007/book-whole.pdf)

It is extremely readable and presents very theoretical concepts in a pragmatic
way. Love it.

------
bobosha
AI - A modern approach by Russell & Norvig.
[http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/](http://aima.cs.berkeley.edu/)

~~~
stealthcat
How to use this book? My machine learning lab have few copies but nobody seems
to be using it.

~~~
ayushgp
It's actually not all that useful for Machine learning and is more focused on
other aspects of AI. It talks a lot about propositional logic, knowledge
representation, etc.

------
vmarshall23
Well, for nerd books, "Modern Operating Systems" by Andrew Andrew Tanenbaum.
It was until years later that I realized just how much I had learned from that
book, and the consolidated notes from the Usenet flame war between him and
Linus Torvalds.

There's just so much "how does all this shit actually work" in there ....

------
boysabr3
Haven't read it personally but heard great things about: Paradigms of
Artificial Intelligence Programming: Case Studies in Common Lisp - Peter
Norvig

[https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558601910](https://www.amazon.com/dp/1558601910)

------
justin66
Introduction to Algorithms (CLRS). With the caveat that I'm not sure I've ever
"read" a textbook, but I've referred to a lot of them.

------
pruthvishetty
The Elements of Statistical Learning.
([https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf](https://web.stanford.edu/~hastie/Papers/ESLII.pdf))

------
tom_mellior
A bit late to this party, but: Campbell et al.'s "Biology" is the best
textbook I've ever read. It starts at entry level but goes really deep.
Everything is explained very well and beautifully illustrated. To add context
to the "hard" scientific content, there are also interviews with leading
researchers in biology who provide their points of view on the main themes of
the book.

There is a bewildering confusion of editions and versions of this book, but
look for a book called "Biology" or "Campbell Biology" with Neil A. Campbell
and Jane B. Reece in the author list, but not necessarily listed first. There
is what I believe to be an abridged version called "Biology: Concepts and
Connections", and something called "Biology: A Global Approach", which may
just be the name for the newest editions.

~~~
veddox
Yep, that's the one I was going to say :-)

"It goes really deep" is, unfortunately, a relative description. Half-way
through my undergraduate studies, I had pretty much outgrown it and needed
more specialized books.

Nonetheless, it is a _superb_ entry-level college textbook that covers the
entire breadth of modern biology. The text is very understandable and gives
more background information than is needed for a typical introductory lecture
to any given topic (while still emphasizing the salient points so you don't
get confused). Apart from the above-mentionend interviews, it also includes
sections on current methods in biology, which are pretty handy when you're new
to the field. Plus, the illustrations are simply excellent: pretty to look at
and a huge help for understanding. On the whole, I find it to be one of the
most aesthetically pleasing textbooks I know. (Beaten only by Futuyma's
"Evolution".)

My best investment in university so far!

~~~
veddox
Gilbert's "Developmental Biology" is another great (and really good-looking)
textbook. It almost made me want to go into developmental biology, just for
the textbook :D

------
joshvm
It's not the best textbook ever, but Shankar's book on quantum mechanics is
interesting. It builds everything from ideas about vector spaces and the
underlying mathematics (in an accessible way) before quantum magically pops
out. You end up understanding bra-ket notation without realising it.

------
mattbgates
Unfortunately, someone stole it from me, but it was an introduction to
philosophy book that really opened up my mind, introducing philosphers
including Socrates, Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, Aquinas, Confuscious, Hobbes,
Hume, Foucault, Kant, Kierkegaard, Lao Tzu, Locke, Marx, Mill, Rand, and more.
It basically covered who they were, how they grew up, and what they've stated
that has helped contribute to our society. Very interesting book. Can't recall
the exact name of it, but I don't the book anymore to do my research and read
any of these philosophers.

------
lodi
Type-Driven Development with Idris

[https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven-development-
with-i...](https://www.manning.com/books/type-driven-development-with-idris)

------
Eridrus
Reinforcement Learning 2nd Ed By Sutton & Barto was surprisingly readable.

------
ken
The Feynman Lectures.

(I think I've read the first volume, at least, even though I don't claim to
have understood it all.)

------
fiftyacorn
Not tech - but "German - A Structural Approach".

Its the only book i still have from uni. It breaks the language down, and made
it easy for a techie like me to learn german. Can still speak a fair bit

------
drdrey
I'd like to piggyback on this question and ask specifically for a good
textbook on distributed systems

------
joefarish
Engineering Mathematics and Advanced Engineering Mathematics by Ken Stroud

Lots of worked examples. Very easy to follow and really helped me "teach
myself" calculus and advanced calculus.

------
clort
The C Programming Language, by Kernighan & Ritchie (2nd Edition). I picked
that up and was hooked.. 30 years ago

~~~
Tepix
Really? I've read it a few times but I never thought it was a great book.

~~~
randcraw
I liked the first edition of K&R a lot. Today I suspect it shines most when
compared to recent intro language books. It was succinct yet offered insight
into both the language's design concepts and its implementation -- an
introduction to software based on Strunk & White's spartan model of
exposition.

Given the abstract nature and swiss-army knife mission creep of today's
languages, it's a rare intro PL book today that's smaller than 600 pages. (K&R
1978 fit into a mere 220.)

------
deepaksurti
3 so far:

1\. Elements of Computing Systems

2\. On Lisp

3\. Game Engine Architecture

Edit: 2 -> 3

~~~
godelmachine
Elements of Computing Systems is NAND2TETRIS, right?

~~~
deepaksurti
Yes, it is.

------
jpamata
Coding the Matrix: Linear Algebra through Applications to Computer Science [0]

A hands on introduction to both Python and Linear Algebra using real world
cases (ex. you are given a high res image, make a low res version to put on
your website so that it could load more quickly).

[0] [https://www.amazon.com/Coding-Matrix-Algebra-Applications-
Co...](https://www.amazon.com/Coding-Matrix-Algebra-Applications-
Computer/dp/0615880991)

------
badpun
Spivak's "Calculus".

------
dfex
MPLS-Enabled Applications: Emerging Developments and New Technologies by Ina
Minei and Julian Lucek. There are a lot of books out there on MPLS services,
but this one stands out for me because of the way it is written: the subject
matter is clearly explains some very complex topics in a way that even a
beginner network engineer could grasp, while not being a wordy tome that you
never get around to finishing.

------
taserian
A dear favorite of mine was Baldor's Algebra. Everyone else in high school was
scared of it, but I found it to be very methodical and easy to follow from one
topic to another.

Picture of the cover, with text in Spanish:
[https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lgebra_de_Baldor](https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%81lgebra_de_Baldor)

------
busterarm
I've seen SICP and Elements of Computing mentioned already. I'd like to throw
"The Nature of Code" in with these.

------
hnarayanan
Numerical Linear Algebra by Trefethen and Bau.

~~~
achompas
I loved working through this years ago. Clear and succinct.

------
npr11
Introduction to Probability, by Blitzstein and Hwang. Builds your intuition
for the most unintuitive subject.

~~~
repsak
Haven't read the book but the lectures are good!
[https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2SOU6wwxB0uwwH80KTQ6ht66...](https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2SOU6wwxB0uwwH80KTQ6ht66KWxbzTIo)

------
Tepix
The Camel book¹ is pretty fantastic.

I hope the "Learning Perl 6" book by brian d. foy will be as good. \-- ¹
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_Perl](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Programming_Perl)

------
Hockenbrizzle
For a textbook where the author does a brilliant job of introducing a complex
topic:

Spacetime and Geometry an Introduction to General Relativity by Sean Carroll.

Also the textbooks by David Griffiths and Gill Strang mentioned in other
comments.

------
arbales
The Unfinished Nation by Alan Brinkley

------
md2be
Morrison and Boyd, Organic chemistry

Guidurati, Econometrics

Samuelson, Economics

------
dyeje
Computer Networks by Tanenbaum

Entertaining and insightful.

------
vinchuco
Combinatorics, A guided tour - Mazur

------
damionx7
Denial of death by Ernest becker

------
cozzyd
Sakurai Quantum Mechanics

