The challenge with books on AI is that the technology outpaces writing speed. I often find myself recommending these two, especially for those who entered the AI world during the 2022 Generative AI surge:

1. The 100 Page Machine Learning Book by Andriy Burkov
2. The Little Book of Deep Learning by François Fleuret (available free online, but a physical copy makes an excellent gift!)

As Andy famously says, “There is no compression algorithm for experience” — but these two come close to distilling the complex fundamentals.