Are you looking to play and experiment with electronic building blocks and get started making things? Forrest Mims III, an excellent author of handbooks, has published a compilation.
Getting Started with Electronics: Forrest M. Mims II: 9780945053286 Amazon.com: Books
There were many others, but I was able to list them all. Once you have outgrown this one you will be able to form your own opinion about the next step. Have fun
Commentary and editing:
Electronics can be compared to carpentry. Once you have made a few things, what are you going to do with them? It can be difficult to make permanent builds after your first lessons. The Mims series may seem a little out of date to some. Its use of “through hole”, and a lack “surface mount” technology is the main reason. Focusing on small, standalone projects that can be done in 10-30 minutes and then taken down easily allows for a lot more progress. Individuals may not realize the interconnectedness of small projects. This provides an easy way to create a variety of stand-alone projects that can be quickly modeled on a breadboard and used as building blocks. Although almost all these parts are still available, it’s a challenge to navigate an online electronics store like Digikey or Newark.