mechanical

Shigley has and always will be my definitive guide whenever I need to do design. Great book that covers a vast scope of work.

-- Shigley is dead both literally and figuratively!!!
Quite possibly the worst book I have ever had for a class. I have seen the previous editions and they were good, the latest edition (7th) is terrible. It appears they tried to update the 5th and 6th editions by changing the end of chapter problems, but didn't bother to update some of the answers in the solution manual. In addition, they use equations in the solutions that aren't in the book. Which leaves the student trying to figure out where they got the answers.
In several cases they added additional equations to the book that can be used to solve for the same parameters without giving any guidance on which equation to use (they all produce different results). Plus by adding pieces and parts of additional equation and tables all over the place the book forces the user to turn back and forth between numerous sections.
To streamline (i.e. put in order) and correct the the book the instructor made over 100 pages of supplements to the text. Having to write >100 pages to make a 1000+ page book understandable is ridiculous.

As a Mechanical Engineer that's been out of college for a few years, I find that I turn to this book on a weekly, or at least monthly, basis. My version is the 5th addition (the old grey cover of most past editions).

As people have noted, you don't learn from this book. If you want more in-depth looks at statics, dynamics, etc - you'll still go back to your core textbooks. But, for example, if you want a formula to figure out the torque required for given loads transmitted by feed screws, you'll turn here.

This book isn't Marks' handbook - but then again, it's easier to flip to a page for a subject and not wade through all of Marks' 1200 pages. It also isn't the Machinery's Handbook - giving you oodles of charts for different materials, fasteners, and what not. But it's a great bridge between the core textbooks and the very heavy (and tiny print) handbooks.

There isn't an ME in my company that I haven't seen a version of this on his shelf. Almost all of them have it heavily tabbed. And as one said when he opened mine (which wasn't quite as broken in), "my copy usually falls open to the right page".

I would highly recommend any of the version's of Mr. Shigley's book in whichever edition (all the names after Shigley keep changing). But I don't think I need to - as every ME will have to buy this his senior year.