Reddit reviews Molecular Biology

Molecular Biology of the cell - Great textbook to get you started. It is really comprehensive but not challenging to read. The diagrams are informative but not overbearing. The author clearly cares a great deal about the subject.

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Cell-Bruce-Alberts/dp/0815341059

Molecular Biology - Weaver - This one is nice because it keys in on many of the landmark experiments and scientists who contributed greatly to the field:

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Associate-College-Sciences/dp/0073525324/ref=sr_1_1?crid=1L89I1QHNC7HX&keywords=molecular+biology+weaver&qid=1571969517&sprefix=molecular+biology+weaver%2Caps%2C130&sr=8-1

If you want something smaller and more like a narrative, give Recombinant DNA: Genes and Genomes - A Short Course a try.

https://www.amazon.com/Recombinant-DNA-Genomes-Course-Edition/dp/0716728664

For which one? CRISPR? Well you won't be able to understand the details until you have a good grasp of molecular biology. But molecular biology itself is a huge area. I would like to give you recommendations but it's really hard with your interests so broad.

It is like asking for book recommendations on Linear Algebra: there are tons and some focus on numerical methods, others on eigenvalues, others on decomposition methods like SVD, others on applications in machine learning, etc.

Maybe start with something like this:

https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/0815344325/ref=pd_lpo_sbs_dp_ss_1/187-9306447-5023949?pf_rd_m=A3DWYIK6Y9EEQB&pf_rd_s=lpo-top-stripe&pf_rd_r=0A3FAK9C4CRAFZQTEQ4H&pf_rd_t=201&pf_rd_p=1977604502&pf_rd_i=0815341059

or this

https://www.amazon.com/Molecular-Biology-Robert-Weaver/dp/0073525324/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479421339&sr=8-2&keywords=Molecular+Biology%3A+Robert+Weaver

for molecular biology.

For introductory genetics, pretty much any undergraduate level biology or biochemistry textbook will help you understand the basics of transcription, translation, genes, heredity, etc. Once you have a thorough understanding of what a gene is, what a regulatory region is, what epigenetics is, what types of mutations occur etc. then you'll have a good idea of which specific questions to ask to explore a certain topic in more detail.

I would also spend time on the wikipedia pages and other sources reading about the different sequencing methods that are central to genetics. Look up Sanger sequencing and explore some of the next-generation-sequencing (NGS) techniques now available. Fully understanding these will also require knowledge of biochemistry, such as phosphodiester bonds, and basic biology techniques and physics such as electrophoresis and fluorescence.

Understanding and diving into CRISPR, genetic engineering, synthetic biology, etc. will require a thorough understanding of the above, and then more detailed knowledge on gene expression, how it is manipulated, about things like plasmids, retroviruses and their molecular machinery, etc.

Then there are people who develop algorithms for bioinformatics that probably know little to none of the above and don't need to for their day to day work; the answer is in general "it depends".

If you are looking for a very broad overview of the molecular side of genetics, then I second previous comments that suggest Wikipedia. Start here and follow every link. If something isn't terribly clear to you, or you want more information about it, then read some of the journal articles linked in the references. Many of them are avaliable freely online, especially if you are accessing them from a college campus.

For online lecutre notes, you might find MIT's open courseware project to be helpful.

If you are looking specifically for a book to use, then Alberts et al. Molecular Biology of the Cell is considered a 'must have' bible for many practicing biological researchers. I find it a little too low level for deep knowledge. As a deeper alternative to Alberts, I suggest Weaver's Molecular Biology, which covers detailed molecular mechanisms of genetics at several different control levels, as well as including detailed descriptions of original experiments that uncovered the mechanisms, using figures from the original papers.