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5 Best Books to Learn AI and LLM Engineering in 2025 (That Aren’t a Waste of Time)

javinpaul
Sent as aNewsletter
6 min readApr 27, 2025

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Hello guys, when it comes to learning AI and LLM Engineering you will find that there are a lot of books in the market which is mostly created to make quick bucks in this AI Gold rush.

Honestly speaking, most books about AI and LLM engineering are a complete waste of time.

They’re either outdated, too academic, or filled with theoretical fluff that won’t help you build real-world AI systems.

But there are books, which are like gold, they will teach you the things and perspective about AI and LLM which you may not have thought about it.

Earlier, I have shared best AI courses, best ChatGPT courses, best Data Science courses and best Machine Learning courses and in this article, I am going to share best books to learn AI and LLM Engineering in 2025.

These are mut read books on AI and LLM engineering, not just in my opinion but also from several others on Reddit and HN as these are also the most recommended books on AI and LLM Engineering.

If you’re serious about becoming an AI Engineer or mastering Large Language Models (LLMs), these are the books you should actually read.

Each one is practical, battle-tested, and written by people who have built production-grade AI systems — not just talked about them.

By the way, if you are looking for an online course or certification to start your career then you can also take a look at the on Udemy, you won’t regret it. It’s one of the best AI course online.

5 Best AI and LLM Engineering Books to Read in 2025

Without any further ado, here is a list of 5 Best Books to Learn AI and LLM Engineering in 2025. This include books on AI, Machine Learning and Large Language Model.

1.

This is one of the best and essential book from Chip Huyen, one of my favorite author when it comes to AI and LLM engineering

While “AI Engineering” focuses more on the systems side, this one gets into how to design and operate machine learning systems under real-world constraints like data drift, retraining, and model reliability.

You’ll start thinking like a machine learning product engineer, not just a model builder.

Here is the link to get this book —

2.

This book shows you how to actually ship Large Language Models into production environments. You’ll learn about fine-tuning, deploying, scaling, and maintaining LLMs like a real engineer.

It’s packed with hands-on advice, architecture examples, and real deployment challenges.

If you’re aiming for a career as an LLM engineer, this book should be your first read.

Here is the link to get this book —

3.

Sebastian Raschka is a legend in the machine learning community. This book teaches you how to build a transformer-based LLM from scratch using PyTorch, with no shortcuts.

You’ll go deep into model architecture, tokenization, attention mechanisms, and training strategies.

Perfect for developers who want to understand LLMs at the code level, not just use APIs like OpenAI’s.

Here is the link to get this book —

4.

This book is like an operations manual for LLM development.

It covers prompt engineering, model fine-tuning, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), evaluation strategies, and production patterns.

The authors have real-world experience building LLM apps at scale.

Highly recommended if you want to move from “just using GPT” to designing serious LLM applications.

Here is the link to get this book —

5.

Chip Huyen brings a refreshing focus on AI systems design rather than just models.

You’ll learn how to turn machine learning models into real products — handling data pipelines, model versioning, deployment, monitoring, and scaling.

If your goal is to become a true AI Engineer (not just a Kaggle competition winner), this book is pure gold.

Here is the link to get this book —

Why You Should Read These Books (And Ignore Most Others)

Apart from my recommendations and several others on Reddit and HN, here are the top 5 reasons why you should read these AI and LLM Engineering books.

✅ They’re written by practitioners who have built production AI/LLM systems.
✅ They focus on engineering, deployment, and real-world use cases — not just algorithms.
✅ They don’t waste your time with outdated academic theory.
✅ They prepare you for the future of AI and LLM work: scalable, reliable, explainable systems.

Though, for faster learning, you can also combine this book with a course like to get some hands-on experience on building RAG based chatbot and learning LLM by watching.

Conclusion

That’s all about the best books to learn AI and LLM Engineering in 2025. If you’re serious about mastering AI and LLM engineering in 2025 and beyond, start with these five books.

They’ll save you hundreds of hours of wasted time and help you actually build systems that work.

Want even faster progress?
Pair these books with hands-on projects like , , or deploying a real-world LLM app to the cloud.

Other AI, LLM, and Machine Learnign resources you may like

Thanks a lot for reading this article so far, if you like these books then please share with your friends and colleagues. If you have any feedback or questions then please drop a note.

👉 Read smart. Build fast. Stay ahead.

P. S. — You can also combine this book with a course like to get some hands-on experience on building RAG based chatbot and learning LLM by watching.

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A humble place to learn Java and Programming better.

javinpaul
javinpaul

Written by javinpaul

I am Java programmer, blogger, working on Java, J2EE, UNIX, FIX Protocol. I share Java tips on and

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