After reading a shit ton of books about Bitcoin I couldn't recommend any other combo, they never go conspiranoical, never go about how everything else will fall and Bitcoin will be the only standing thing in the universe, they only talk about the fundamental workings of it and they are pretty concise.
BTW: I'm never recommending The Bitcoin Standard, it's a crappy book IMO.
I hadn’t heard of 2 before. Based on the description it sounds like a very high level history of the backstory, plus a high level technical intro. If that’s accurate, it seems like the latter may overlap with Inventing Bitcoin. I think the backstory deserves a full book, and my go-to recommendation there is Digital Cash.
Layered Money is a great book. I think Broken Money fulfills a similar role but with better references for additional reading. Anyone truly passionate about the topic should read both.
I’ll be picking up the Suarez book since we seem to have similar standards (heh heh). If you’ve read either of my alternative recommendations I’m interested to hear your thoughts on how they compare.
I still have to read Broken Money, I'm waiting for an audiobook version to be available on Audible in my region since that's my jam, but yeah, I've heard great things about it, and now that you say that it closer to Layered Money than I might give it a read on paper instead of waiting for the audiobook to be available.
I recommend Alvaro's book for 2 reason's:
He does a great job at explaining not only how Bitcoin works but why it's important, his book is a great introduction not just to the inner workings but at the philosophy behind it.
I know the guy, he's chill about all of it and very level headed, maybe one of the people who I know knows the most about Bitcoin without being a deranged fan, he's a great person.
This is the first time I hear about Digital Cash, I might give it a read, but at this point I don't think it would give me any new information I don't already know heh heh.