>Also strange that the author warns against exotic topics and then 3/5 of these recommendations are exotic things 99.9% of readers will never encounter. I don'

>Also strange that the author warns against exotic topics and then 3/5 of these recommendations are exotic things 99.9% of readers will never encounter. I don't think you understand what "exotic" means in this context. Literally everything on this list except QFT is something pretty much every physicist will study. (And every theorist will study QFT.) No coincidence that it's almost topic for topic what I studied in grad school. This is "how to actually learn physics", not "how to learn a subset of physics." Exotic topics would be quantum loop gravity or supersymmetry; things which sound cool but aren't foundational in the same way.