[thisisu]

Do not buy one of the new editions of The Art of Assembly Language by Randall Hyde. It's not assembly but high level assembly or some junk.

I'm sorry but just to clarify, you don't recommend which edition(s)? There is a PDF linked from R4ndom's site which I downloaded and started reading (having a hard time getting understanding Chapters 4 and 5 though...) -- home http://thelegendofrandom.com/blog/tools // direct : http://www.thelegendofrandom.com/files/ ... sembly.zip

Can you go into some more detail of why you wouldn't recommend this book (or certain editions of it)? I'm also having trouble finding a very beginner friendly ASM book. However, perhaps I shouldn't be starting trying to learn ASM as I do not understand C, C++, or Python either. :(

[m4lware]

For Malware reverse engineering you can also refer to blog http://www.themalwarehunter.com It is new blog but simple and easy to understand for beginners.

[nullandnull]

Can you go into some more detail of why you wouldn't recommend this book (or certain editions of it)? I'm also having trouble finding a very beginner friendly ASM book. However, perhaps I shouldn't be starting trying to learn ASM as I do not understand C, C++, or Python either. :(

The newer/later version of The Art of Assembly do not teach x86 assembly but High Level Assembler (HAL). For more information on HAL check out http://hlasm.com/english/hlasm.htm. It is useless for reverse engineering because no disassembler uses HAL as an output. The book posted on R4ndoms site looks to be one of the older ones, which is good. Yes, the memory section can be a little boring to learn because it's a lot of memorization but that knowledge is extremely valuable in the long run. If you don't have a background in programming the content is even harder. The key is to just keep pushing through the book. If something doesn't make sense find another article, blog or technical document that describes it. The more ways you hear it described and/or used the more it will make sense.