"Programming from the Ground Up" is a really fantastic book that starts with some architecture, assembler and executable file format. Discussion: <a href="https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702025" rel="nofollow">https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11702025</a>
Peter Norton and John Socha - Peter Norton's Assembly Language for the IBM PC.<p>Hideously outdated, and has practically no real world application any more, but is conversely an incredibly lucid, explanatory, and beatifully written as a guide to 16-bit Assembly language on the IBM (and compatible) PC - Guides you through first examinations of registers and memory through to creating a low-level hard disk editor.<p>Pop open DosBox, download MASM, and see what you can break!<p>Currently going for $3 on Amazon - worth a pop for that price if only for a cursory look!<p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Brady-programming-library/dp/1566860164/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1499163399&sr=8-2&keywords=Norton+assembly" rel="nofollow">https://www.amazon.com/Assembly-Language-Brady-programming-l...</a>
Can't get more low level than ASM<p><a href="http://www.agner.org/optimize/" rel="nofollow">http://www.agner.org/optimize/</a>
Michael Abrash's Graphics Programming Black Book. He's also got a few "Zen of ..." books:<p><a href="http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming-black-book/184404919" rel="nofollow">http://www.drdobbs.com/parallel/graphics-programming-black-b...</a>