This is the second edition of a cool little handbook to keep around the studio. I'm not so sure that it will get you out of a pinch during a hard mixdown, but there's a lot of simplified information to help you understand how CDs work, basic acoustics, what makes mics and speakers tick and many more bits of knowledge. I find it best for looking up basic info, like types of noise reduction or MIDI stuff. I'm not sure why you'd ever need to know that a guillotine is 85-90 dBA at the operator's ears, but otherwise this would be a great, inexpensive book to pick up for any beginning or professional audio freak. (www.focalpress.com)
Official site: www.focalpress.com