Curated Books & Courses
Curated books and courses mapped to each phase — use these to go deeper beyond the free resources in the main roadmap.
Each phase has a recommended book and video course. Expand a phase to see why each was chosen.
O'Reilly Subscription – Is It Worth It?
Phase 1 – AI Foundations
2 books · 5 video courses
Phase 2 – LLM Setup & Configuration
1 book · 2 video courses
Phase 3 – Prompt Engineering & LLM APIs
2 books · 4 video courses
Phase 4 – RAG & Working with Data
2 books · 8 video courses
Phase 5 – Agentic AI
2 books · 7 video courses
Phase 6 – Building & Training LLMs
3 books · 6 video courses
Phase 7 – Production & Staying Current
2 books · 10 video courses
If You Only Pick 3 Resources Total
Best Single Book
AI Engineering – Chip Huyen (O'Reilly, 2025)
Covers the full AI app stack. Most read on O'Reilly. Timeless principles, not just tools.
Best Deep-Dive Book
Build a Large Language Model From Scratch – Sebastian Raschka (Manning)
If you want to truly understand how LLMs work, this is the one.
Best Free Video Series
Neural Networks: Zero to Hero – Andrej Karpathy (YouTube)
The best free education in AI that exists. Period.
Paid Bootcamp vs This Path
Paid Bootcamp
Live cohort + community
Instructor feedback
Structured schedule
Certificate
Expensive
Fixed schedule
One-time coverage
This Path
Mostly free or ~$100 total
Self-paced
Go deeper on any topic
Referenceable forever
Self-discipline needed
No live feedback
No certificate
Click each phase → toggle Books / Courses & References