Books on statistical mechanics

An Introduction to Thermal Physics (Schroeder) is the one that seems to be recommended more
than any other book. It's very user-friendly and informal (probably the most user-friendly stat mech
textbook on the market). That said, its organization doesn't make it particularly suitable as a
reference (it spreads a lot of things that belong in one chapter into separate chapters that are all
dispersed throughout the book), and it doesn't present things in terms of unifying concepts.

Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics (Reif) is more advanced and goes in more depth. It's
kind of old and shows its age though. I actually really liked reading it for background (especially on
kinetic theory) when I was going through Kardar. It's really good on kinetic theory.

Grad Level:

Statistical Physics of Particles (Kardar) - Everyone calls it "terse". It is notorious for its challenging
problem sets. And it is kind of a pain to go through. I'll have to admit though - I just took a course
going through the book, and in the end, I'm extremely glad that the book was used. Its problem sets
*really* force you to look back into the book's examples and they *really* force you to learn the
material. Also, almost everything in the text is in there for a really good reason. There is almost zero
filler (well, maybe except for the kinetic theory chapter - that was brutal overkill, and I'm not sure if
all that detail was really necessary...). It gets easier and more rewarding after the kinetic theory
chapter.

It's really best used in conjunction with other textbooks, though, since other textbooks are a lot
better at providing the background that one might not get from Kardar.

You also have to do a lot of things in d-dimensional space. I found it really brutal at first, but it gets
easier.

Thermodynamics and Statistical Mechanics (Classical Theoretical Physics) by Walter Greiner - lots
of worked examples and explanations - probably the most "friendly" of the grad-level books.

Statistical Mechanics (Huang) - another standard stat mech grad textbook. Seems to explain some
things in more detail than Kardar, but fewer problems.

Statistical Mechanics (McQuarrie) - I think this is used more for physical chemistry students at the
grad-lvl. I haven't looked into it much but it looks interesting. It covers a lot of the pchem stuff that
the physics textbooks neglect (pchem has more in concrete physical examples, which some may
appreciate).

Landau-Lifshiz - definitely famous back in the past; not used as much now though.