For my anesthesiology MS-4 rotations, I used 4 pocket-sized books. The top two books I'd purchase [used] first are:
1. NMS Clinical Manual of Anesthesia [
Amazon Link]
2. Blueprints Pocket Anesthesiology [
Amazon Link]
As DreamMachine said, NMS Anesthesia is probably the best 'intro-to-anesthesia' book out there -- it's very concise, and has everything you'll need to ace end-of-rotation shelf exams. Unfortunately, the text is pretty prose-heavy and dry. In contrast, Blueprints Anesthesiology is full of tables, graphs and figures. It's not as 'golden' as NMS Anesthesia, and certainly isn't as high-yield [nb: I wouldn't use it as a primary source], but I found it enjoyable to read.
If you're doing an away rotation in anesthesiology, or are planning to go into anesthesiology, there are two larger books available:
3. Anesthesia Secrets [
Amazon Link]
4. Clinical Anesthesia Procedures of the MGH [
Amazon Link]
I actually didn't like Anesthesia Secrets -- I didn't like the prose question-answer format of the book [viz. Pretest], and thought that it hit minutae instead of important concepts. I loved Surgical Recall [sister book], but this book really doesn't compare. It also doesn't fit into scrub pockets, which is where the 'Clinical Anesthesia Procedures of the MGH' book comes in -- this book is the single greatest anesthesiology text I've ever had -- it's written in outline format, is very easy to read, and has literally everything you need to know. I'd read NMS/Blueprints first, but after you master/mark up those two books, the MGH book pays out in spades. Highly recommended -- my book is dog-eared and underlined to death.
