No idea for purely circuit theory. My textbooks were not great, but videos from 6.002 (a course at MIT) were a godsend.
Sedra/Smith is my recommendation for applied circuits. It's mostly amplifiers---still with a heavy emphasis on theory. At 1400 pages, it's really, really long. (A good portion of this is also taught in 6.002.)
The Art of Electronics is a gold mine of knowledge but very, very in-depth/technical. By chapter 4, you're analyzing a precision waveform generator with 3 ICs, a MOSFET, and a handful of passive components for biasing/filtering. Horowitz/Hill even recommend specific components (lots of tables) with explanations, and they point out some common circuit mistakes, workarounds, and improvements. Also, it's over 1,000 pages just in the main book. If I had to pick one book as the sole resource for an EE degree, it's this one.
As a supplement to books: Falstad's circuit simulator[1] because it is very easy to use (compared to SPICE) and has examples of nearly every circuit you would learn as an undergrad.
No idea for purely circuit theory. My textbooks were not great, but videos from 6.002 (a course at MIT) were a godsend.
Sedra/Smith is my recommendation for applied circuits. It's mostly amplifiers---still with a heavy emphasis on theory. At 1400 pages, it's really, really long. (A good portion of this is also taught in 6.002.)
The Art of Electronics is a gold mine of knowledge but very, very in-depth/technical. By chapter 4, you're analyzing a precision waveform generator with 3 ICs, a MOSFET, and a handful of passive components for biasing/filtering. Horowitz/Hill even recommend specific components (lots of tables) with explanations, and they point out some common circuit mistakes, workarounds, and improvements. Also, it's over 1,000 pages just in the main book. If I had to pick one book as the sole resource for an EE degree, it's this one.
As a supplement to books: Falstad's circuit simulator[1] because it is very easy to use (compared to SPICE) and has examples of nearly every circuit you would learn as an undergrad.
[1] https://www.falstad.com/circuit/