There are a few recommendations for The Art of Electronics. It's a great reference, but probably hard to approach as a beginner unless you're very motivated and comfortable being confused at points.
Electronics covers a huge field and many people specialize in just one area. Here are some of the main areas that are accessible to hobbyists (roughly in increasing order of difficulty):
- Digital electronics. Using microcontrollers to do things in the physical environment.
- Audio electronics. This is a fun area of electronics because the quality of what you build is directly reflected in how it sounds.
- Amateur radio electronics. Lets you talk to other people around the world. Harder than basic audio circuits because you need to know about antennas and radio operates at higher frequencies. Also requires passing an exam to get licensed, but studying for the exam helps with learning some of the theory.
- FPGAs. These are sexy, but not many applications that are that compelling for a hobbyist unless you have something very specific in mind. Plus you have to learn Verilog or another HDL and the way of thinking is very different than normal programming (since you're effectively describing the hardware you want rather than an algorithm).
My advice is to first figure out which field you're interested in, then find a project to work on related to that field. Having something practical to refer to makes understanding the theory (like what you'd learn in The Art of Electronics) easier.
Electronics covers a huge field and many people specialize in just one area. Here are some of the main areas that are accessible to hobbyists (roughly in increasing order of difficulty):
- Digital electronics. Using microcontrollers to do things in the physical environment.
- Audio electronics. This is a fun area of electronics because the quality of what you build is directly reflected in how it sounds.
- Amateur radio electronics. Lets you talk to other people around the world. Harder than basic audio circuits because you need to know about antennas and radio operates at higher frequencies. Also requires passing an exam to get licensed, but studying for the exam helps with learning some of the theory.
- FPGAs. These are sexy, but not many applications that are that compelling for a hobbyist unless you have something very specific in mind. Plus you have to learn Verilog or another HDL and the way of thinking is very different than normal programming (since you're effectively describing the hardware you want rather than an algorithm).
My advice is to first figure out which field you're interested in, then find a project to work on related to that field. Having something practical to refer to makes understanding the theory (like what you'd learn in The Art of Electronics) easier.