Reddit reviews Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design (Mcgraw-hill Series in Mechanical Engineering)

There isn't going to be any one book that can cover everything effectively for mechanical engineering, mostly because of how broad it is. For real world application, I would suggest checking out Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design.

edit: Mark's Standard Handbook for Mechanical Engineers is also one that I have heard recommended.

shigley's mechanical engineering design

Statics and dynamics by beer etc.
http://www.amazon.com/Vector-Mechanics-Engineers-Statics-Dynamics/dp/0073398136/ref=sr_1_5?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426107608&sr=1-5

mechanics of materials also by beer etc
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Materials-Ferdinand-Beer/dp/0073380288/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426107608&sr=1-2

Shigleys mechanical engineering design
http://www.amazon.com/Shigleys-Mechanical-Engineering-Design-McGraw-Hill/dp/0073529281/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1426107693&sr=1-2&keywords=shigleys

fluid mechanics by white
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanics-Student-McGraw-Hill-Mechanical-Engineering/dp/0077422414/ref=pd_sim_b_45?ie=UTF8&refRID=1598FBBBQ7NSWR5MKF90

Heat and mass transfer
http://www.amazon.com/Heat-Mass-Transfer-Fundamentals-Applications/dp/0077366646/ref=pd_sim_b_64?ie=UTF8&refRID=0QG596EKX9F6S2T3F32G

Thermo
http://www.amazon.com/Thermodynamics-Engineering-Approach-Student-Resources/dp/0077366743/ref=pd_sim_b_86?ie=UTF8&refRID=0NW57Y2JVW3AGSH3R3ZP

kinematics
http://www.amazon.com/Machinery-Resource-McGraw-Hill-Mechanical-Engineering/dp/007742171X/ref=pd_sim_b_31?ie=UTF8&refRID=09FEZCGH0P7QAK3KFHR1

Vibrations
http://www.amazon.com/Mechanical-Vibrations-5th-Edition-Singiresu/dp/0132128195/ref=pd_sim_b_79?ie=UTF8&refRID=16QXABYHM8AZS8AEYQ2M

these were at least some of the books my school used. I also hated most of these books.

This is my #1 ME book.
https://www.amazon.com/Shigleys-Mechanical-Engineering-Design-McGraw-Hill/dp/0073529281/ref=pd_sbs_14_t_1?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=Q77471NPXP6JS89SH1B5

To quote my machine design 2 professor: the amazing involute! This is the book I was taught out of and, in my opinion, pretty decent (link). To be honest if you don't want to buy a text book sharpen your google-fu or go find a mechanical engineering professor at your university, I'm sure they would be happy to talk to you about them.


EDIT: Not that I don't want to take the time to explain it but I don't want to take the time to draw it out, find a scanner and scan it, upload it, and then write out a text explanation. Something to be said for a whiteboard / scratch paper when explaining things that makes it hard to do on the internet without spending loads of time. Props don't translate well either. I remember my professor had wheel with string on it, for drawing involutes, that was very useful.

I personally did not care for the Philpot book. I found the Hibbeler Mechanics of Materials book to be far superior. However, I had to purchase the online version of the textbook for my class and I found the animations for that text to be very helpful.

When it comes to the Machine Design course I really liked Machine Elements in Mechanical Design by Mott, and Shigley's Mechanical Engineering Design. Machine Design by Norton was my required text for my Machine Design course and the rest of the class, including myself, found that text to be very difficult to follow. It felt like, at least in the fourth edition, the author released a new edition without thoroughly checking his examples. Therefor, about 9 weeks into the course the professor decided to switch textbooks and assigned yet another text for the class. Having fallen for that trap already, I did a quick amazon search and bought the highest rated machinery design textbook; which was the textbook by Mott.

Also, keep in mind that you don't have to spend $100 for a textbook that is not required for the class. Do as I did and purchase either an international edition or better yet and old edition for which you can easily obtain a solutions manual.

It should go without saying that there are many avenues for purchasing textbooks online. I used to frequent Abebooks, but Amazon has since bought it and I have found that their prices have began to increase. Your best bet is to use a site like Bigwords because a site like that searches many textbook websites for all of the textbooks you want, then picks the best price including things like shipping and coupon offers.

Best of luck.

No I just googled it since I have the book. You can just search for "shigleys ______" and probably find it. It's a mechanical engineering book that I think is used a lot. This is the version I have but it seems there are newer versions.