Which physics books are considered the "best" in at least some sense? In particular, I'm looking for serious books on electromagnetism, thermodynamics, and introductory quantum mechanics. I place a high importance on rigour and consistency. I like to know what is being assumed, what ideas come from experimentation, which things can be derived logically from something else, etc. Thanks.

I place a high importance on rigour and consistency.

This book would be a great challenge: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/isbnInquiry.asp?z=y&endeca=1&isbn=0486600564&itm=10

Very cheap and full of derivations. It is not light on multivariable calculus.

It is old now and there may be better, but I like Leighton's Modern Physics - I must have as I spend the summer before my qualifying Ph.D. exam doing almost all the problems in it. It is especially strong on quantum physic as applied to spectrosocopy. I was getting my Ph.D at Johns Hopkins, where more than half were granted in that field, where the ruled diffraction grading was developed, where one basement room had a 21 foot diameter "roland circle" spectrograph you worked inside of in the dark, etc. My Ph.D. was on the Stark broading of AII lines at high electron density in Plasmas. (AII = radiation for the argon ion, not neutral argon.)

Have you read Isaac Asimov's understanding physics? There are three volumes to them...Hard to find now.

Thanks for the replies. The book Absane mentioned seems to have enthusiastic reviews on amazon. The "level" I am at is the mechanics and electromagnetism in the AP Physics C exams (which incorporates the calculus). While somewhat technical, most of it amounts to nothing more than superficial tinkering with formulas; very little physical insight is involved. However, I've always been an avid reader of popular physics books (authors like Hawking and Brian Greene), and I want to see for myself, firsthand, the development of the ideas they discuss.