Considering it seems like you're just building up your understanding one step at a time, wouldn't you also be able to read the same book 5 times?
Different introductory books can organize the topics very differently. Some introductory books could miss the crucial explanation of the most important concepts.
Sometimes you can just find one single sentence in one book connects all the dots together, and you will be like: this sentence solved my so many questions, why didn't all the other books mention this?
I.e. the process is additive, each book lets you tease out another layer of understanding, and it's best if these are different books, because then there are more things for your brain to diff, making the understanding process faster.
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I strongly endorse this method. Doesn‘t have to be books either. Want to learn about some cutting edge research topic in a highly technical field, but don’t want to first go through 3 years of grad-student-level coursework?
Jump right in, but don’t start with a textbook or a survey paper. Start by skimming 10 or 20 (or more) arbitrary papers about related topics. Don’t worry that many terms seem like nonsense. Try to get the gist (to the extent possible) of each paper quickly. Let the methods and terminology wash over you. After that go back and read the survey paper, which should hopefully start to make sense after prior exposure to some of its ideas. Then if there are parts of that which still don’t make sense, go find the relevant textbook(s).
It’s not worth reading research papers in an unfamiliar community too carefully right off the bat; most of the papers are garbage and without some exposure/context it’s sometimes hard to tell which ones. Sweating all of the details before you have the right high level impression is going to confuse you and waste your time.
It's like trying to approximate a relationship between a set of points. It's better to look at many points than to try and sample the same point multiple times.
I spent 10 years on a one big abstract algebra reference book. Lots of honest and long efforts: zero knowledge out of it.
Someone here mentioned another book (5$ on ebay). It was an operational view on linear algebra (more data manipulation and applications than dry theory). Took 2 days to get me started. The difference was hard to believe for me.
Since then I never stay with one book on a subject.
Also, to be totally honest, some ideas in functional programming have a similar flavor, so my brain was also a bit more open to these ideas.
this is the book https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0763746312/ref=dbs_a_def_r...
My ref book is high up in abstraction and concepts, it expects the reader to see the forest behind the notation tree. Williams' book is almost high school level mindset. It just takes your hand and go through the motions step by step. So that the notation's meaning is all but obvious.
People with confidence and a free view of mathematics are probably capable of bridging the gaps in the ref book style. But if you're not in that mood you'll drown.