Electrodynamics literature

Beginner Books (Worth a linear read)

• Introduction to Electrodynamics - David.J.Griffiths
  The holy grail of all books for beginners in Electrodynamics. He is reading a story to you. Chapter 1 dedicated to the math required for electrodynamics is super important. Solve most of the problems to get a feeling of the math that is going to be used. The book is divided into two parts (in any logical course, you will do one part in a single semester course).

• A student’s guide to Maxwell’s equations - Daniel Fleisch
  This 150 page booklet is in no manner a substitution to a proper text like Griffiths. But, it does a wonderful job in summarizing the most important results. This is an excellent resource to get an gist of what you will be learning.

• Electricity and Magnetism - Edward Purcell & David Morin
  A small fun fact about this book : Griffiths in the preface of his book writes, “Practically everything I know about electrodynamics - certainly about teaching electrodynamics - I owe to Edward Purcell”. On top of that, David Morin is the same guy whose lecture notes on Mechanics are practically used by every physics student at least once in their life. Now, getting to the book, this book is so much more dense than Griffith’s textbook. Every mathematical step has been laid out in detail, so intricate detail at times that it might scare the reader. A lot of solved examples, and exercises with solutions at the back of the book. The amount of topics he covers is staggering. At least in Germany, not a student favorite unfortunately.

• Theoretical Physics III : Electrodynamics - Nolting
  The book is advertised as for beginners, which is not wrong, but he really gives minimal physical intuition. Nevertheless, I have found myself going to this book to look for mathematical precision. It does and impecceable job while doing this. As an example, Griffiths (or any other book above for this matter) doesn’t really use the dirac delta function (distribution if some mathematician is reading this) $\delta(x-x_0)$ or the Heaviside theta function $\theta(r-r_0)$ while defining charge/current densities. The integral boundaries are set from the worded part of the problem. This is where the book shines, attention to mathematical detail so see how every step comes from the previous one. All exercises have solved solutions on the back, and the problems are excellent. The solutions are definitely not bad, but sometimes you will catch yourself going, “What? Why? How?". I like to think that he did it on purpose, he gave the solutions but still makes you think on the steps.

Advanced reference books

• Classical Electrodynamics - David Jackson
  Solutions - Website 1, Solutions -Website 2
  Do I really have to introduce this book? Fortunately or unfortunately, depends on whom you ask, my undergraduate education was completely from Jackson’s book. Looking back, it was ridiculously intense doing modified Jackson problems for semester II assignments. After a few semesters when I had the opportunity to give tutorials for electrodynamics, I went back to the book and had hundreds or “Eureka” moments when I understood the real physical intuition behind several topics. This book is in no way for the weak hearted. I would highly recommend it to students who have already studied Griffiths level electrodynamics and are looking for a challenge.

• Principles of Electrodynamics - Melvin Schwartz
  A typical dover publication book. Basically a “No-nonsense introduction to the subject”. I have a love-hate relationship with Dover books in math/physics. After a while, I realized the reason. If I try to learn a new topic from the Dover books using my traditional studying techniques (I will talk about this in another section altogether), I found myself stuck in loops at times. But, if I just pick them up like a novel and read through them, I thoroughly enjoy them. These books are more condensed but well explained. If you don’t understand a section, accept the result and move on, you will eventually have to reread the section again anyway if you get my gist. You will understand it better on the repeated read.

• Classical Electrodynamics - Walter Greiner
  Not really in the category of “Advanced”, rather a reference book for everything. Not my personal favorite for a linear read.

• Course in Theoretical Physics II - The classical theory of fields : Landau Lifshitz

Freely available online sources

Lecture notes - Generally complement well in parallel to a formal course

• David tong’s lecture notes
• Feynman’s lectures - A typical first course would be from chapter 1 - 18
• Classical electrodyanmics - Alexander Atland