JavaScript in 20 Minutes (Coffee Break Series)

Mixed feelings. The good parts are genuinely good; the rest is forgettable.

A colleague recommended this and I can see why. It does something that few technical books manage: it respects the reader's time. A couple of chapters felt like they could have been merged, but that is a minor complaint. The balance between theory and practice is well judged; neither side dominates. Useful as a reference, less so as a straight read from cover to cover.

Some sections were excellent and others felt like filler.

I bought this on a whim after seeing it mentioned in a forum thread, and I am glad I did. The author is unusually honest about where the simplifications break down, which I appreciated. The code samples assume a particular environment, which took a bit of fiddling to get running properly. The author is unusually honest about where the simplifications break down, which I appreciated. Fine, but there are stronger books on the same subject if you look around.

Genuinely excellent — I finished it in a week and immediately started again.

I picked this up after getting stuck on a project and it turned out to be exactly the right book at the right time. I found myself making notes in the margins, which is always a good sign. The early chapters move quickly through material I already knew, but the later sections were genuinely new to me. I have already recommended it to two colleagues and will recommend it to more.