An alternative to Horowitz and Hill?
joe_bleau: You do know that there is a companion hands-on lab book for AofE, right?  http://www.amazon.com/Art-Electronics-Student-Manual-Exercis...The ARRL handbook is also a very practical intro text, but quite broad.[edit] Oh, another decent book that's aimed at technician level students: Electronic Principles by Malvino.  I've got an older edition from my high school days, and it's a real easy read with lots of explanation of transistor circuits.  http://www.amazon.com/Electronic-Principles-Albert-Malvino/d...