Hi sonicbum,
Thanks for the reply, and no - I'm not looking for tutorials, but something that is well written an illustrated properly, instead of the poorly worded and badly illustrated (duck egg bluey grey & white cr@p) FCOM, and that then allows me to actually be able to read (and enjoy) doing so whilst expanding my own breadth and depth of knowledge. The FCOM generally is lacking here, it needs a complete overhaul IMHO as it's not user-friendly as a pilot (again, my own opinion here). With perseverance you can eventually understand what is being written and such like, but the opportunity to get things wrong because of mis-interpretation is rife, and certainly if you have conversations with Airbus pilots elsewhere, it's astonishing how many similar but different thoughts as to how a system or item works (or doesn't) crops up, leads me to conclude there is an issue here. In the past, sims and alike - it has been remarked that my technical knowledge is very good, but I have to say - mainly by going over and over relevant section of the FCOM repeatedly (more often than you should have to), in order to 'pick the sweetcorn out of the !!!!e'.
The Safety First publications and FCTM etc. are much, much better in 'readability' - but of course they naturally do not go in to the depth necessarily that the FCOM of course needs to, but are far more suited to use in revising etc. - whilst I agree about interpreting normal and abnormal parameters, whilst you suggest you don't need to know the "tiny bits of system details" - having an automotive engineering background in my earlier days, it helps me considerably to understand the systems when I have a resource that I can refer to and interpret properly, and the FCOM - it's just never worked for me - sorely lacking in most areas and awful in how it's put together. A look at Boeing and Cessna's equivalent publications reveals far, far superior publications in use, so it can be done obviously.
I agree with the dangers of studying other people's books, apps etc. - but I'm finding myself after 8+ years of use, I'm slowly giving up on the FCOM for anything other than cursory searches for reason's I've stated - hence the desire to find something else. Either that or option 'A' in my earlier post applies ;-).
Thanks again for reply...much appreciated.