After Dick Smith's fun way books as an early teenager AoE was my first "real" electronics book. It was certainly helpful for practical advice, but I did not fin

After Dick Smith's fun way books as an early teenager AoE was my first "real" electronics book. It was certainly helpful for practical advice, but I did not find its presentation of circuit theory at all clear (the hand-wavy analogy about transistor man comes to mind). At the time I had a music degree and very little undergraduate mathematics and only high-school physics. More recently I've been dabbling with electronics again. Someone recommended Malvino's "Electronic Principles" (I bought the 5th Edition second hand), which I found much clearer for circuit theory than AoE. Sedra and Smith will probably be my next purchase but I doubt it should be your first. Also, "beginner" could mean a lot of different things. And perhaps more important than where you're at, where do you want to get to? There's a world of difference between (1) soldering together someone else's design, (2) being able to understand why someone else's design works, (3) being able to piece something together from common sub-circuits, (4) produce your own design from scratch. And all of these will vary depending on the circuit type: analog/digital/RF etc.