As a relatively newer player I have been fortunate to acquire a number of books that are appropriate for scrubs such as myself, and am now about to complete my 6th book. These are:
. No More Soap on a Rope
. Finders Keepers
. Smuggling for Beginners
. The Real Dutch Courage
. Making Friends, Enemies and Cakes
. Keeping your Face Handsome (completing soon)
As you can see, nothing earth-shattering, but the modest gains of money and nerve will compound over time. To answer your questions:
o My favorite of the bunch is Finders, Keepers which gave me a nice financial boost very early, with Dutch Courage second since I enjoy crime.
o I don't think books are balanced at all, but I'm ok with all that RNG, that just seems to be the way Torn works
o And I believe the effort put into acquiring them is worth the reward
o While the power level of books is very wide there's none I would get rid of. I even got some decent value out of Soap on a Rope as I had started Pickpocketing and was getting jailed a couple of times a day. This helped me git gud