Cryptography and Network Security: Principles and Practice by Stallings, William

I adored this book! It’s one of my favourite texts of all time. I used it for a computer security subject and it’s a great primer. It covers a middle ground in computer encryption and network security that serves wonderfully as a primer for the novice and a reference for the experienced.
The contents are roughly evenly split between detailed descriptions of currently used encryption protocols, and descriptions of network security protocols. For a complete reference library on this field, you would also need a book on network communications protocols, a mathematics-heavy text on the design of encryption algorithms and a programming-heavy text on encryption algorithm implementation.
But if you have prior knowledge of network comms, aren’t interested in encryption design or maths, and can do the coding yourself, then this book has all you need to understand practical encryption and security currently used in industry and to implement the protocols yourself.Stallings has a great writing style and explains concepts in clear and interesting English. You can’t go wrong with this book. As a primer for the primer, I’d recommend The Code Book by Simon Singh (very readable) or any of Stallings’ other books specifically dealing with data comms.