I can suggest an excellent book that takes you from the beginners level and into advanced topics in SolidWorks. This book was written by a Sr. SolidWorks instructor in the Southern California Area with "more than 3000 students trained" to his credit. The Author is Paul Tran and the book is titled "Teach Yourself SolidWorks". This is a 28 chapter independent training manual that includes modeling basics, bottom-up and top-down assembly methods, detailed drawings and advanced topics like mold techniques, surfacing, design tables, sheet metal design and converting 2D Autocad files into a 3D environment. It contains valuable software settings information and quickguides to help you learn the icon functions more efficiently. It contains better information and more of it in a single volume where SolidWorks takes 4 books to cover the same amount of information.
It can be ordered by sending a request to pt_eng@yahoo.com. The price is $65.00 and includes shipping. The publisher is a Company named Source4 Parametric Engineering Corp. located in Orange County Ca.
I hope this information is helpful to you.
Vern Trimble
Certified SolidWorks Professional (CSWP)
knvt@cox.net