The best intro book for any topic
Of course I checked out physics and in addition to Larry Gonick’s The Cartoon Guide to Physics, it gave a bunch of books on various topics within physics. I have read none of these books, so I have no basis for endorsing or disputing the choices; I don’t know if “Best Intro” means they were going for pop-sci books for a general audience or intro textbooks for the student or serious amateur. The Cartoon Guide might indicate one way — I’m not sure — but the other titles are or seem more like textbooks. The closest I can come to a recommendation is noting that the QM book is by David J Griffiths, I’ve heard good things about it, and his Electrodynamics textbook is very good.
Ok – since you already tried “physics” (which I also instinctively tried first), I tried something else.
Something else I know a little bit about – scuba diving. Should I tell you what came up? Maybe I should let you do it. No, I will tell you.
“Dive into Python” – brilliant.
I totally misread the title, and thought it was “Best book intro” for physics. Which I think would have to go to David Goodstein’s “States of Matter”, which begins:
“Ludwig Boltzmann, who spend much of his life studying statistical mechanics, died in 1906, by his own hand. Paul Ehrenfest, carrying on the work, died similarly in 1933. Now it is our turn to study statistical mechanics.”
P.S. The Griffiths QM book is good, as one might expect.