While it's easy to move from one chapter to another, it's not at the expense of the authors and their personalities. D. Richard Hipp's thoughtful preci- sion and De Clarke's care in engineering effective solutions come through, as do the assurance and lucidity we expect of Don Libes. These frailties are inevitable when broadcasting on dead trees, of course. The quality of production is high, higher even than the ele- vated expectations I have of O'Reilly. Typos, mistakes in word choice, and code errors seem to sum to around zero to five per chapter.
Screen shots are judicious and illuminating, rather than gratuitously space-filling.
During more contempla- tive moments, you'll want to read the chapters in a connected fashion, and the accuracy and insight of the authors will make you glad that you do.