As other reviewer has noted the authors have made a very concientious effort to try to be clear and practical. This is not a theoretical book, although chapter 2 "Theory" alone may well be worth the price for book. Chapter 2 is the most difficult, extensive and theoretical chapter in the book, but worth the effort. The explanations are very detailed and organized on different levels of difficulty. The authors are very systematic in their approach. All basic RC / LC / RLC circuits are explained by calculus, by mechanical / hydraulical analogues and the behaviour is summarized in tables at the end of each section. The authors make a consistent effort to make sure the reader grasps the essentials.

Whether the mathematics used in Chapter 2 is difficult or easy depends on the reader's prior background. Some knowledge of basic calculus helps, but is not an absolute requirement, as the solution of the equations is given and rather extensively explained by other means. Complex variables are also used, but the mechanics of complex variables calculations are explained clearly, simply and with enough worked examples and exercises to allow a dedicated reader to be able to learn how to get practical results without getting into the technical details.

After chapter 2 the book gets very practical indeed, with detailed coverage of the elements of circuits (chapter 3). This chapter in particular is extremely well written The elements of circuits, from connectors to wires, to the different constructions, advantages, applications and disadvantages of different types of capacitors, resistors, inductors, batteries, connectors and even wires are explained at length.

Transistors, Op Amps and Discrete Logic circuits are covered in the following chapters. An overview of microcontrollers and FPGAs is included but is not as deep, so if your interest is specifically in these you will have to expand with another book. Test equipment, oscilloscope and multimeter principles and use, pcb construction, recommndations on building your electronic component stockpile.... This book has almost everything I can think a beginner would need.

While the book is not hardcover and somewhat floppy, it is sturdy enough to withstand heavy use. My volume is certainly not falling apart. T printing is black and white only, but the drawings and diagrams are very legible and clear. The paper quality used is a bit uneven throughout, with a few pages here and there printed on what seems more porous paper, but all perfectly legible.

Some mistakes have made it to the fourth edition.
1. On pages 182 and 184 the title of the section should be "LCR circuit" instead of "LC circuit"
2. On page 302 section 3.5.2 the denominator of the expression in the example should be 1000 + 3000 ohms, instead of 1000 x 3000 ohms. The result is correctly stated as 4000 ohms.

A well deserved best seller. If you know nothing about electronics it will get you to a very decent level of understanding. If you already know about electronics the explanations, tables, and detailed descriptions are very useful. It has a much gentler learning curve than the other classic book with a practical orientation "The Art of Electronics" by Horowitz, buy both if you can, but "Practical Electronics" is an excellent place to start.

For a little background, I own a previous paperback edition of this book from years ago which is buried in storage. As I look into making several projects now that my 3D printer build is complete, I find myself in need of a refresher. I was overjoyed to see a new edition of this book had been released and was available on kindle. Now 20 minutes and 14 pages into the book I've given up and will be buying the paperback edition. In those first 14 pages I encountered 2 places where example calculations should have been displayed and an instance where the symbol for a battery was to be shown. All three situations just had a blank space with references in the text to the missing information the only indication that something was missing . As a result it's not worth my time to continue since I'm not willing to deal with the frustration of this which I assume will continue through out the text.

It's a shame too, since I thought the index was well laid out, liked the hot links within the text that take you to other referenced sections of the book and know that the content of the paper edition is probably outstanding. Thank goodness that Prime will get the physical book to me quickly.

04/20/16 Edit: I've raised the rating of this book from 1 to 3 since I received the physical edition of the book which is awsome and I realize the 1 rating was a little harsh. That being said, I firmly believe that if you are going to publish a kindle edition of a nonfiction book, it must be identical to the physical edition. Someone purchasing the kindle edition should be able to receive the exact same information in a kindle edition as in a physical edition. If you can't publish a book like that, I don't think it should be published as a kindle at all.

I've also added a couple of images from the physical and the kindle edition of the book to illustrate the issue that I'm talking about.

This Book gets 5 stars due to it's content, and all of the dedicated effort of the authors. However, this 4th edition suffers from paper quality issues, and unfortunately there is a fair amount of show through on the pages which is distracting while reading.

This is great book, with a lot of extra info worked into the 4th edition. And to the publishers credit the price has been kept low. But I have to wonder if this good price was at the expense of the publisher choosing a lower quality paper to stay within a price point.

I would have been happier to pay a higher price for better quality paper in this book. And I feel the Content, and the Authors deserve it.

Overall I'm sad that the publisher took the path that they took when putting this title into print.

I have been using this book to teach a university introductory electronics class for several years, starting with the second edition, through the third edition, and will now start using the Fourth Edition this fall. It is an excellent book at an excellent price. The real value of this book, as I shared with my previous reviews, is the breadth of information that is covered. This is a book that should be on the shelf of any engineer who will ever have to deal with any question of electricity or electronics. Does it cover every topic in exhaustive detail? No, and that is part of its strength. It gives enough information for the novice to get the concept along with ways to find more information. A new chapter has been added on programmable logic, which continues to grow more day by day.

In addition to the traditional material on electricity concepts such as voltage, current, and resistance, there is a lot of useful day-to-day information. There is a section on electric motors, a section on home electrical wiring, a section on electrical safety, and lots more. There is a chapter on sensors that is more up to date with the recent advances in less expensive modules that can be used by microcontrollers like the Arduino. Again, no exhaustive detail, but the information is present to spur the reader on to find more detailed information on the internet and in other references.

Thankfully, this book is NOT written like a traditional textbook with lots of theories and derivations of equations. It presents what you need to work with electricity and with electronic components. It's a tutor...it gives you the basics so that you then know how to find the information when needed. At over 1000 pages, there's a high probability that any topic the reader wants to know about is at least mentioned along with the means to find further information.

Paul Scherz started with a classic book with the first edition. With Simon Monk's addition to the team for the Third and Fourth Editions, this book is destined to be the new standard for electronics instruction.

This is a great book to have as a reference, once you understand the basics of electronics. It includes a lot of sample circuit drawings for using most of the most commonly used chips. I've only had it a few weeks and it is already filled with post-it notes marking circuits I've needed to reference for my own projects. If you are brand new to electronics, I'd start with an easier book for learning the basics before jumping into this book. This is a great book for people who need diagrams of a lot of common circuits to use in their own projects. If your end goal is to learn just enough electronics to get one of your own design prototypes working, this is a great book for that. On the other hand, this book won't make you an electronics engineer. For example, this will allow you to combine various off-the-shelf components to build basic voltage-regulated power supplies. It won't, however, teach you how to design better or custom versions of those off-the-shelf components. If you're looking for that level of education, look elsewhere.