Great replies, thanks! I'll definitely include most of this in the follow up post.
While I will recommend Machinery's Handbook (and I do own not just that one but several others and more than one edition of Machinery's), I'm not so much a fan that I would list it as #1, 2, and 3. A lot of the information in it is either not very up to date or much easier to come by elsewhere. It has feeds and speeds for example but it suffers from both problems. I mostly use my Handbook for specs on things like threads or fasteners.
What are some other books people like for beginners to have on hand? I mentioned Machine Shop Trade Secrets. Metalworking Sink or Swim is one I liked even better and will mention in the follow up post.
Smid's books are great, but I ultimately concluded after reading all of Smid's work plus a whole ton of controller programmer guides from the manufacturers that there is a LOT Mach is missing, LOL. It all had to be written into my G-Wizard g-code simulator.
OTOH, there are some things you can do in Mach but not in the commercial controllers that are quite nice too, largely in the area of UI work. A friend just spent thousands on a new probe package for his Fadal and has the pleasure of sifting through tons of macros on the machine and trying to remember what does what and which arguments to pass to make it do what he wants. The nice screens people have put together for probing are just not there unless there is some conversational option I haven't seen yet.
One of the areas I struggle with is how to help beginners with CAD/CAM. The problem is that it's hard, and all the software is different. I haven't found too many rules of thumb that seem like they apply across most of the packages to help the beginners. Any ideas there would be much appreciated.
Cheers,
BW
Try G-Wizard Machinist's Calculator for free:
http://www.cnccookbook.com/CCGWizard.html