Can you recommend me a good book?

[elips]

Can you recommend me a good accompanying book on a wide range of topics that include: the nature and propagation of light, geometric optics and optical instruments, interference, diffraction, relativity, photons, electrons & atoms, the wave nature of particles, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecules & condensed matter, nuclear physics, particle physics & cosmology.

I need a really good accompanying book that has lots of solved questions by which I can practice what I've learnt... It can also have a solutions manual, so what's important for me is that it contains lots of challenging questions and it has a neat and easy-to-understand narration.

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Huqinpku]

There's no one book covers all topics while providing lots of solved examples.
Try Schaum's Outline series.

 

[bpatrick]

Modern Physics by Serway Moses and Moyer might be ok depending on what you're really looking for (supplement for a class? GRE prep? self teaching?).

I wouldn't describe it as challenging nor advanced, but it covers most of the stuff you listed and as far as I know there's a solutions manual if you'd ever run into any trouble. (a solid calculus physics overview + intro to ODEs and vectors is all you'd need for this book).

If you're looking for something along the lines of texts to aid with Physics GRE prep, then I give this a gold star, especially if you can pick up an older edition for $10-20. It has loads of questions (with odd answers in the back) that would be covering the depth of what you'd encounter on the GRE.

If you're looking for something more advanced, uhh, like what was said earlier: you're probably not going to find advanced material on all those topics from a single source. Good luck in looking and hopefully the Modern Physics text will work for your needs, I definitely liked it for additional GRE prep although I didn't really do much "learning" from it, from what I did read, it looked like it was well written.

 

[elips]

I need this book as a supplement for a class that I'll take next semester. Therefore, I need it basically for self-study so that, I can feel myself prepared for the upcoming semester and I can get good grades...

 

[Jorriss]

I need this book as a supplement for a class that I'll take next semester. Therefore, I need it basically for self-study so that, I can feel myself prepared for the upcoming semester and I can get good grades...

What book does the class use?

 

[jtbell]

the nature and propagation of light, geometric optics and optical instruments, interference, diffraction,

Depending on the level you want, either a typical first-year intro physics book (Halliday/Resnick, Serway, et al.), or an intermediate/advanced undergraduate optics text like Hecht.

relativity, photons, electrons & atoms, the wave nature of particles, quantum mechanics, atomic structure, molecules & condensed matter, nuclear physics, particle physics & cosmology.

Perhaps a second-year intro modern physics book like Taylor/Zafiratos/Dubson, or Ohanian, or Serway/Moses/Moyer.

I don't think you'll find both sets of topics in significant depth in one book.