[joshmarlow]

I'm assuming this was the Ullman book you took a look at - https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Automata-Languages-Compu...

If not, it's good but pretty dense. If you didn't like that, then I would recommend this one - https://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Theory-Computation-Micha...

Sipser has a lot less notation and more english explanations of the concepts. I picked it up and read most of it after graduating - it's pretty easy to follow (though if I recall, I think some of the terminology around Turing complete languages differed slightly from the Ullman text).

[pthreads]

Thanks for the Sipser recommendation. Picked it up yesterday and already liking it.

[llimllib]

I love sipser, it’s one of the few textbooks I kept after college