Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums Recommended Resources art of electronics, recommendations for approach?

Hi, my ds15 had some fun this summer putting together a small oscilloscope kit with his uncle, electronics guy extraordinaire...he recommended he follow up by checking out the "art of electronics", so we got an old copy off amazon.
It is interesting to him, but a bit hard to get through: I think it was written for a 1st year electronics course at mit and the version has a few typos which make some of the reading confusing, unless you re-read and maybe have some other reference material to check against.

Anyway, not exactly the ideal situation. Wondering if anyone has any thoughts on similar basic but very thorough electronics books, with perhaps some exercises / building assignments that would be a bit smoother for him, something to do nearly on his own, if possible.
Or ideas for materials to support the art of electronics edition itself? I have googled a bit, but the few folks who were brave enough to ask for help on understanding bits of the book were disdainfully rebuffed, and basically told to keep re-reading it over and over; apparently that is one way to approach this subject, lol.

The authors, Horowitz and Hill, are Harvard professors http://www.cambridge.org/us/academi...ts/art-electronics-3rd-edition?format=HB .

Ok, harvard it is. Have you read this? there are many many glowing reviews on the readability; I am now wondering if we are just looking at too old an edition. Hm.

I found it to be a really readable text if my memory serves me right, when I used it in college in the late 90s. Also as I recall, the student manual was really helpful as a supplement to the main text.