Modern Compressible Flow with Historical Perspective by John D. Anderson provides an excellent resource for studies in advanced fluid mechanics. In a field where many texts provide useful content in an entirely unmemorable fashion, this text is an exception. Theory, History, Applications, and other interesting information and stories make this book a beneficial addition to any engineer's library. This review refers to the 3rd edition of this text.
This text was the primary resource for a graduate course I took in Advanced Fluid Mechanics at Rice University. While most of my engineering test I have never referred back to except to grab an equation here and there, I have actually found myself picking up this book now and again trying to put it to work. Usually, I am just testing to see whether I need to consider compressible effects in whatever fluids problem I might have in front of me (unfortunately, almost always finding that the normal incompressible assumption will work just fine), but I actually hope to find places to use it.
While many professors will throw around names and histories in their particular fields (usually, I think to promote their profession), this book does it in a way that it is engaging, applicable to the subject at hand, and gives you a sense of how you fit in the broad expanse of engineering history regarding fluid dynamics problems. That's not to say that this is a book to sit around and read on the weekends. If you enjoy reading through pages of differential equations (an unavoidable subject when discussing fluid mechanics), then you will like this book a lot, otherwise, just understand its place in your library. [ad name="Adsense Small Horz Banner"] Of course, for engineering enthusiasts, mechanical and aerospace especially, supersonic flow (the primary application of this text) is a fun subject and this book provides the stories, and technical information necessary for anyone studying that phenomenon.