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CSS Web Design For Dummies Review by Kevin Connery
Tolerable for casual users
If you're looking for an easy entry into learning CSS and don't care about portability between browsers and operating systems, this is an OK guide. It's easy to read, the tone is casual and friendly, and the basics are described fairly well.
If it's at all important to worry about how things will appear for anything other than IE on Windows, however, this is a very poor choice.
The author covers the basics of CSS fairly well, with only a few glitches and oversimplifications. Unfortunately, he also spends a lot of time complaining about the syntax, the design of the syntax, the designers of CSS in general, and dismisses the mere idea of validity checking, insisting the tools are too rigorous. That approach is carried through the book, with a deliberate exclusion of concern for usability outside one specific--albeit large--audience: current users of IE on current versions of Windows. Even the trouble-shooting section makes little mention of dealing with inconsistencies.
He notes that he won't waste time on theory--but does so frequently enough that it would have been faster to include the theory than the constant "I won't bother you with that" disclaimers.
If you already have a copy, it's not a horrible book to read. If you have any option and care about understanding how to design an effective webpage using CSS, I can't recommend spending money on it, however.