Books
In each section, books are order in increasing difficulty.
Mechanics
-Great insights
- Morin, Introduction to Classical Mechanics: With Problems and Solutions
-Fun problems. For introductory mechanics, the perfect combination is reading Feynman then doing the problems from Morin.
- Landau and Lifshitz, Mechanics
-Concise, beautiful arguments
- Spivak, Physics for Mathematicians, Mechanics I
-Examines and challenges “basic” principles in mechanics
Relativity
- Landau and Lifshitz, The Classical Theory of Fields
- Dirac, General Theory of Relativity
-Extremely short
- Wald, General Relativity
- Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler, Gravitation
-Classic, but long; it’s self-gravitating!
Quantum Mechanics
- Griffiths, An Introduction to Quantum Mechanics
-Basic
- Shankar, Priniciples of Quantum Mechanics
-Basically an updated Dirac
- Dirac, The Principles of Quantum Mechanics
-The first and best book on QM
- Sakurai, Modern Quantum Mechanics
Electrodynamics
- Purcell, Electricity and Magnetism
-Classic introduction, but a bit lengthy
- Griffiths, Introduction to Electrodynamics
-Clear exposition and well motivated, perfect for self-study; best introduction
- Jackson, Classical Electrodynamics
-Legendary graduate text
Online
In the age of the internet, you can get a college-level education for free.