Basic Electronics - I want to learn the "why", not just the "how"
BUT I need to know why the components are placed where they are placed
  for the circuit to work.


As a consumer electronics technician, I felt the same need.  That's why I left the field and enrolled at the School of Electrical Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

You won't find the answers you seek in any single book; learning "why" is a process and that process begins with quite a few prerequisites in, e.g., calculus and physics.