Gazettabyte asked its Facebook followers if there is a textbook they value more than others, and why.
It could be a book from student days or a more recent one, work-related. Also asked were readers' interest and experiences with newer styles of learning - online, and books with interactive elements and accompanying websites. Books here include business and technology titles.
The question regarding textbooks arose after getting a copy of Networked Life: 20 Questions and Answers by Mung Chiang. The book asks and answers such questions as:
- What makes CDMA work?
- How does Google rank web pages?
- What is inside the cloud of iCloud?
This is an undergraduate textbook for a Princeton University course aimed at electrical engineering and computer science students.
Networked Life is very different from traditional textbooks. It stresses real applications and practical examples. Moreover, each question - a chapter in the book - is answered at two levels: a short generally accessible answer and a more rigorous in-depth treatment that includes diagrams, graphs and maths.
Back to Gazettabyte's Facebook followers. Broadbandtends' Teresa Mastrangelo answers that she has a marketing textbook that she still references: Marketing Management by Philip Kotler. "I even bought a more current version of the same book," she says.
Yuriy Babenko goes for Govind Agrawal's Fiber-Optic Communication Systems, "the bible for all things optical".
Professor Izzat Darwazeh, head of the Communications and Information Systems Group at University College London cites two titles: Introduction to Communication Systems by Ferrel G. Stremler and Schilling and Belove's: Electronic Circuits Discrete and Integrated.
"Both books are from my undergraduate days, but still are relevant today and both are very well written and readable," says Darwazeh. "I used them to learn and use them to teach. Both have sufficient detail to understand the subjects, move from absolute beginnings to advanced levels and have plenty of examples and questions at the end of each chapter."
So what textbook do you recommend and why? Would you highlight any business or technology books that are particularly useful and any online learning resources? Please comment.
Further reading:
Website to accompany the Networked Life book, click here.
Gazettabyte's recommended books, click here
And if you are involved in continual learning and skill acquisition, here are two suggested titles:
- Hacking your education by Dale Stephens
- The first 20 hours: How to learn anything ... fast by John Kaufman