[obnauticus]

Tbh Cryptography Engineering by Niels Ferguson is a very good and practical intro to this topic.

[a--n--b]

My graduate Applied Cryptography class used Katz and Lindell's "Introduction to Modern Cryptography." It's widely used at top institutions. While it definitely can be intimidating at time, the authors provides a classical approach to the topic.

I found it had a nice balance of theory and application.