
And then, there are the pleasures of fiction. I can't argue for fiction other than to say that it's good in a way nothing else is, and you have to experience it to understand.
If you want to try, start with good short stories. You could do worse than the sort of "anthology of classic short stories" they sell in the bargain bin at the used bookstore. There's often gems in there. Look for O Henry, Mark Twain, de Maupassant, Dickens, maybe some of Balzac's shorter material. Skip anything that doesn't grab you. Once you've developed an appetite, try more involved works. Survivor bias operates in your favor here: 19th and early 20th century works that we're still talking about are generally quite good, and there are quite a lot of them. Both recency and copyright law oppose you finding good novels written in the last century. There are many, but you're more likely to miss something good because it's not fashionable, or read something bad because it is.
So yes. Books are worth it.
Great book. Although it can be a bit handwavey and a bit light on the math. Honestly I think it's best supplemented with a good signals and systems text.
I like "Signal Processing and Linear Systems" by Lathi and "Digital Signal Processing : principles, algorithms and applications" by Proakis.
After understanding filters, and frequency analysis, you will be able to ask more specific questions than "how to isolate a voice from a single sample?". I am just finishing a course on Image Processing and while some of the stuff that I learned on Signal Processing was useful, I would describe it as being only primitives (think of as integers, doubles, and control structures in programming languages) and we explore higher level of abstractions (segmentation and classification techniques). I assume the same is true for audio signals, and recommend as well to read a specialized book on the subject. I am sorry I cannot recommend one.
