I have been looking for books on cellular automata, and I really can't afford more than one book right now, so I really need to make the right choice. What would be the right book for someone with a Computer Science Masters degree and also feels comfortable with Mathematical Logic and basic Abstract Algebra? (Or, to make the question more useful to others, what are the target readers of the most recent books on cellular automata?)



Book recommendations on cellular automata?
First, there is an unannotated list of books on cellular automata [here](http://uncomp.uwe.ac.uk/genaro/Cellular_Automata_Repository/Books.html).
Second, if you are going to get just one book, then I think it has to be Wolfram's *A New Kind of Science*, which, despite its flaws, is the source of so much of the research in cellular automata
that it must be confronted first. [I see I am concuring with Kevin O'Bryant's just-posted recommendation.] You might read [the review](http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.113.7950) by Lawrence Gray in the *Notices of the American Mathematical Society* (February 2003) to make
yourself aware of the controversies surrounding this book. If you can overlook its flaws, it is a remarkable book, and quite fun to work through.


