The way the data is presented allows the reader to get terrific perspective on a lot of landscape in a single view. As if gripped by an unseen force I found myself accumulating various components and sticking them to circuit boards with molten solder. As an example, the book devotes a section of a few pages to tunnel diodes, an esoteric subject with largely nostalgic interest for the authors. Doesn't dive terribly deep into any one specific topic, but has enough of everything to get started.

This unusual numbering scheme keeps the contents in correspondence with the chapters of the third edition of AoE, stressing the fact that a lot of this material would be right at home there. This book favors an intuitive understanding over the endless math found in electrical engineering textbooks. I haven’t worked with too many excellent analog or mechanical engineers, so my experience with analog design has always been “If you see someone solving an equation for anything other than RF, digital, or power, you’re in for a hassle”, and I never paid much attention to the more arcane stuff. This 'application perspective' is most evident in their presentation: the material is presented with the goal of understanding the behavior of electronic devices, circuits, and systems before the nitty-gritty details of calculating the behaviour … The authors are also liberal in their use of commercially available parts in their presentation, something rarely, if ever, seen in a typical textbook. They work through a detailed example simulating several BJT amplifiers in SPICE to measure distortion.

I started with the second edition and it was very well worn when I purchased a copy of the third, an upgrade I would recommend to anyone still on the fence.

The new Art of Electronics retains the feeling of informality and easy access that helped make the earlier editions so successful and popular.The way … [it] present[s] the data allows the reader to get terrific perspective on a lot of landscape in a single view.

The Art of Electronics: The x-Chapters expands on topics introduced in the best-selling third edition of The Art of Electronics, completing the broad discussions begun in the latter. It makes one aware of how to do design, for example, a common emitter amplifier, as if it's a piece of cake. Theory is on target, just enough to be enough, described in plain language, expressed in math that everyone can grasp.

In my first or second quarter in Vocational Electronics, I visited a guy who was a 2nd year BSEE at another college. If you’re using a textbook for a class, having the international edition is a pain if it’s different – but if it’s just for personal study, it’s no problem.

Chapter 5 details every circuit artifact that I've encountered in the past thirty years in a through, pragmatic, and straightforward way. I think I learned more about circuits themselves when I was a technician than I did as an EE major in school. This is Hackaday-type stuff; if it were’t already in a book, their work would fit right in as a daily article here. As director of the institute's Electronics Engineering Lab he has designed some 500 scientific instruments.L) Workbench Instruments and Tools (M) Catalogues Mags and Data Books (N) Further Reading and References (O) the Oscilloscope (P) Acronyms and Abbreviations. Usually publishers’ contracts with book distributors only allow one edition to be sold in a given territory. This is a tremendous idea for a book like this, which contains all sorts of information you may not find in datasheets. I was about the only student who checked it out in 2 years – I think one other student managed to check it out when I was forbidden to renew it for a week.