Hardware self-study books

Hello, i hope this is the correct part of the forum to post this in.

I am a total newbie at computers and am currently reading basic ' how computers work' books. I'm more interested in the hardware part and i'm starting to pick up some information by now, but i'd like to take some proper courses, books preferably since i cannot go to an actual computer engineering university. I don't like that 'how to' books just dabble on and on but dont actually try to make you remember all the things they talk about, with review exercises and such. Also they only scratch the surface.

I was wondering if someone could recommend and introductory course book to the hardware part of computer engineering - nothing overly complicated and but something that scratches more than the surface, a textbook.