I have never seen a disparaging remark on K & R.
But I will give you one.
I did not like it. There is no substitute for communication. "Condensed" is not an end it itself. I have bought many computer books,
they differ Night and Day as to whether they were worth the price. I usually by a used version so I do not waste money.
I think I paid $40.00 for K&R II, and after looking it thru, felt like I was taken......
Most of what I have learned has come from the cpp.chm, in C, and the win32api.chm for win32, and website tutorials.
There is so little on advanced C, and when you think you found one there is a 95% probability that you will be disappointed.
Free is worth a look at, at least you will not feel taken.
Money is no problem, finding a good book to use it on IS FOR SURE !
It is a lot of experimentation and re-inventing the wheel to progress beyond the fundamentals in C: so it is SLOW !
OK enough ranting for now
...Ed