If you could have only 3 textbooks which one would you pick?

[Garth Wilson]

I've spent very little time in textbooks over the decades, but I'll mention these:

• Math Toolkit For Real-Time Programming, by Jack Crenshaw
• High-Speed Digital Design—A Handbook of Black Magic, by Dr. Howard Johnson (although much of it is just a compilation of articles he had in one of the industry magazines, many of which I cut out and kept anyway.  The book gets further into the math though.)
• IC Op Amp Cookbook, 3rd Ed., by Walter Jung, with lots of ideas

A book I've loaned out to several newbies (and it seldom comes back, so I buy another one on eBay) is Understanding Solid-State Electronics, from the TI Learning Center.  The first one I had was sold by Radio Shack and had RS's cover on it.  It presents the ideas with almost no math.

When our company went to surface-mount, the boss bought me the book "SMT High-Density Design & DFM," by James C. Blankenhorn, from SMT Plus, Inc., which was hundreds of dollars IIRC.  Wow, their idea of "high density" is pretty lame!