At Uni we had a book called "Computer Networking - A top down approach". One of the best teaching books I've ever read. The amount of detail is very nice balanced, and as the title says it's a top down approach where one layer at a time is discussed. Very interesting.

We're using that same book, sixth edition, in my networks course right now. It's overly verbose like every other textbook, but the content is solid.

Also https://www.coursera.org/course/comnetworks is helpful. I use this to prepare interview, just so I don't have to dig my textbook.

Wow...what a great resource! I just downloaded it and will start reading it tonight. Thanks!