Reddit reviews Electronic Circuits for the Evil Genius 2/E

That depends on what you are trying to learn. For a general introduction to electronics, I would getting one of those assortment packs of resistors, another one of capacitors, and a handful of small signal transistors, both PNP and NPN types.
You'd probably also want a couple of small LEDs, an a few rectifier diodes.

One approach would be to start with a book like this that takes you step by step through building circuits on a breadboard. Look at the list of parts required for these circuits, and get those.