Thanks!
No idea for purely circuit theory. My textbooks were not great, but videos from 6.002 (a course at MIT) were a godsend.
Sedra/Smith is my recommendation for applied circuits. It's mostly amplifiers---still with a heavy emphasis on theory. At 1400 pages, it's really, really long. (A good portion of this is also taught in 6.002.)
The Art of Electronics is a gold mine of knowledge but very, very in-depth/technical. By chapter 4, you're analyzing a precision waveform generator with 3 ICs, a MOSFET, and a handful of passive components for biasing/filtering. Horowitz/Hill even recommend specific components (lots of tables) with explanations, and they point out some common circuit mistakes, workarounds, and improvements. Also, it's over 1,000 pages just in the main book. If I had to pick one book as the sole resource for an EE degree, it's this one.
As a supplement to books: Falstad's circuit simulator[1] because it is very easy to use (compared to SPICE) and has examples of nearly every circuit you would learn as an undergrad.
It packed to the brim with usable circuits, you can feel the excitement of the authors sharing a material that they are deeply passionate and excited about!
And what I like the most out of it is how they work super hard to teach you to “think” about components and circuits in an intuitive way. One example, the refer to the opamp as the Lego of analog design and process to share a bunch of configuration in which it can be used, from a buffer to an inverter, filter, amplifier… and how those circuits can be put together to create other cool and useful things!
It’s a book that I’ve enjoyed A LOT!
This is a fantastic book.
If you care about learning circuit design properly, you should do projects. Projects are absolutely necessary in learning Electronics.
Solve your real life problems with Electronics- no matter how trivial.
That is the way.
Also I've self studied and am confused about the whole pure/applied distinction, do some books fall somewhere in between depending on the chapter?
I have Forest Mims's which is a cult classic, but is the size of a magazine. Also I have Foundations of analog & digital electronic circuits by Anant Agarwal which is quite good. I'm not aware of a Spivak/Knuth level text but I imagine there will be something like that out there but perhaps not as well known as those texts.
I can't vouch for its quality but if you want a free secondary resource, All About Circuits has some html books at https://www.allaboutcircuits.com/textbook/
The others comments about M&H have me curious.
M&H teaches in style. They have a nice pedagogical philosophy and upon reading, you will get stuff.
I never liked B&N.
[1] Electrical, Electronics, and Digital Hardware Essentials for Scientists and Engineers
[2] Embedded Systems Hardware for Software Engineers
IMHO even better have PC installed with latest Kicad as it's growing flourishly, so ones uploaded many creative schematics and SPICE components
