Can anyone recommend a networking book for beginners please?

Computer networking, not social networking. 🙂

What level of networking – a simple home setup with a NAS drive and a few computers for example and tablets or more of an SME setting?

For both scenarios you may not need a book as such as there are plenty of excellent tutorials on the web (both written and on YouTube), many of which I personally find far more useful and detailed than ‘Networking for Dummies’ type texts.

Both really, I would prefer a book to read from.

Something like a compTIA network+ study guide might be a good place to start. (network plus is an entry level qualification.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/s?k=network+plus&sprefix=Network+pl&ref=nb_sb_ss_i_3_10

Computer books are really expensive for what they are though!i used to get second hand ones back in the day, often in very nearly new condition from amazon.

Other sources are YouTube tutorials /study series.

Or PDF. Documents of books or audio books. I’ve probably got something suitable I could email to you if you want.

If you (ahem) use torrents, you can Usualy download a bunch of ebooks and videos.

Just to add, sometimes books are poorly written in that they assume you already know (thing x) so it can be confusing, so it’s handy then to watch a YouTube vid on that specific thing, as reading/watching a few different angles on the same stumbling block will often clarify it.

Networking for Dummies probably isn’t actually a bad shout as a starting place (not read it myself but the Dummies books are generally clearly written and provide a foundation to build from). What end goal do you have in mind? A career in IT, to help with a home network situation, just for general knowledge etc.?

I agree with the above, videos are probably better than a book. I bought and read the Dummies networking book about 17 years ago and it was ok, but these days I just go to Youtube and look for the specific topic I am interested in instead.

CCNA Part 1
Is a good start point for a series that seems to run you through the CCNA topics from a basic level.