Recommended electronics books for the new hobbyist

Anything with Malvino as one of the authors. "Electronic Principles" is a good one, they are priced as college textbooks but cheaper if you can find them used. Also, the older 1998 edition is a lot less expensive and the principles have not changed.

I'm not a big fan of the latest crop of electronics books for makers, or inventors, or arduino. They don't go into the theory at all. When I was first learning electronics (we never stop) I wanted to know -how- they work. Why do resistors generate noise? What are the different kinds of noise in an Op Amp? What is the Miller Effect and how does it affect frequency response and parasitic oscillations? How does a MOSFET work, and why can it allow current to flow both ways when a BJT (bipolar junction transistor, ie, NPN or PNP) only allow current in one direction?

The Art of Electronics by Horowitz and Hill is a good book, but you'll need a basics textbook first such as the above mentioned book.