Simon Monk is an accomplished author of several books we personally like. This volume “Hacking Electronics – An illustrated DIY guide for makers and hobbyists” is well titled.

• It is about hacking electronics, which is the “how do I…” aspect rather than the “why does it…” aspect of electronics
• It is well illustrated. Lots of color images and diagrams. And we’re picky – these are pretty nice quality (not grainy or …weird) full color images. Nice on the eyes, and they really help the content of the book.
• It does cover hacks. Some elemental, some basic, and most of them of genuine usefulness. Very little cruft here that won’t be of some interest to a new hacker.

As with most book reviews we do, here’s a chapter list, with some of the notables in each we thought were particularly cool:

Contents

• Introduction
• Chapter 1: Getting Started
• Chapter 2: Theory and Practice
  • (Nice theory of electricity)
• Chapter 3: Basic Hacks
  • (Hacking a Push Light into a light sensor)
• Chapter 4: LED Guides
  • (How to Stop an LED from Burning Out – handy!)
  • (How to use a stripboard for prototyping)
  • (Hacking a slot-car racer to add LED headlights)
• Chapter 5: Batteries and Power
• Chapter 6: Hacking Arduino
  • (A chicken. There’s a picture of a chicken. How cool is that)
  • (Charlieplexing LOTS of LEDs)
• Chapter 7: Hacking with Modules
• Chapter 8: Hacking Sensors
• Chapter 9: Audio Hacks
  • (Pinouts for various audio plugs. NICE)
• Chapter 10: Mending and Breaking Electronics
• Chapter 11: Tools
• Appendix: Parts