Ask HN: What are the best textbooks in your field of expertise?

This book is indeed mind blowing, and after reading it I find all those FP vs OO arguments sterile. As you say, this book makes you understand that it's all a trade-off.

In fact what this book does is advocate multiparadigm languages (actually the author dislikes the term paradigm, multiple programming models would be more acurate), and explains in great detail how to decide which to use when, and how to mix different paradigms (ehem, models) with the very powerful technique of impedance matching.

In Electron Microscopy, for beginners:

Bozzola and Russell, Electron Microscopy, 2nd Edition, published in 1998.

Although 20 years old in a field undergoing a revolution, the authors' method of connecting the theoretical to the (once physical, now touch screen) knobs on the instrument make it probably the best technical manual I've ever read. It's for biological EM, but the introductory chapters on the instruments are for everyone.

Transmission Electron Microscopy, materials, including high resolution, for more advanced users:

Williams and Carter, their 4 volume set, Transmission Electron Microscopy.

Photography?

Christopher James, The Book of Alternative Photographic Processes.

A word of caution: This textbook can get pretty bogged down sometimes because it serves double-duty as a Coq tutorial. (It has to, because the book is literally a Coq script, using formal theorems w/ proofs as examples and formal theorems w/o proofs as exercises.) In my opinion, the material doesn't really take off until vol 2.

However, I don't want to disparage the tutorial nature too much, because learning to "think in Coq" has dramatically changed the way I reason about even traditional pencil and paper proofs, for the better.

I'd also recommend The science of good cooking by Guy Crosby. I found it to be a more enjoyable read than McGee's. Not as technical which was a boon for me since as a home cook there's a lot more information that can be readily skipped.

For learning to cook: The Professional Chef by the Culinary Institute of America is a great book to learn from. All the recipes will need to be scaled down for home usage which is a bit of a nuisance though. For the home cook, Essentials Of Cooking, The Elements Of Cooking, or How To Cook Everything: The Basics, are all excellent too. I couldn't decide which was the best, so I listed them all!

For Flavours: The Flavor Bible gives an easy way to look up an ingredient, and see what else would go well with it. Great for creating your own dishes!

The Flavor Thesaurus gives in-depth information about combinations of ingredients, why they work, and how best to use them. Also recommend the Field guide to herbs and spices which gives more general information about each spice/herb than the Thesaurus. They pair well together.

The Magic Of Spice Blends is a great recipe book of various spice blends, and information about them, along with showing you how to formulate your own concoctions.

Pastries and baking: The Professional Pastry Chef: Fundamentals of Baking and Pastry by Bo Friesberg or Baking And Pastry: Mastering The Art And Craft from The Culinary Institute of America. Either or.

Confections: Chocolates and Confections by Peter Greweling.

Bread: Either Jeffrey Hamelman Bread: A Baker's book of techniques and recipes or Peter Reinhart The Bread Baker's Apprentice.

Reference: Dictionary Of Flavors. Literally a Dictionary of anything culinary related. Useful on those rare occasions.

> If you're going to read it on a screen, I recommend this version: http://sarabander.github.io/sicp/

Thank you very much for the link! :)

Opening it on my phone, this paragraph on the available ebook formats very much made my day:

> A 386 can, in theory, run Linux, Emacs, and a Scheme interpreter simultaneously, but most 386s probably can’t also run both Netscape and the necessary X Window System without prematurely introducing budding young underfunded hackers to the concept of thrashing.