We've got a LOT of books on our shelves - 530 of them at the time I'm writing this page, and perhaps many more than that by the time you read it. There's a great number of books available on each subject ... so which one would you be best advised to choose to meet your needs?

We've categorised our books

• By Subject (and some cover multiple subjects)
• By book type - for example, tutorial or reference
• By level from beginner to advanced - see here for more details
but the question remains ... of all the various possibilities, which of the books that match my criteria should I choose?

• About 1 in 40 of our books are marked as being "HOT FAVOURITES". These books are the ones which we ourselves found ourselves looking up time and time again, and pointing out to customers who use our library as ones they might wish to select. If you need a book or two and wonder where to start, you could do a lot worse than start with a hot favourite.
• About 1 in 10 books is marked as being a "FAVOURITE". In our opinion, these are excellent books covering a popular and important subject accuratly, and are written in a very usable way
The majority of books are NOT marked as being favourites, and you shouldn't take that as any criticism of the book; amongst the reasons that you'll find a book unmarked might be any combination of:

• The book is just too specialised for it to be a general favourite
• The book is out of date, or out of print
• There are too many other good books on the same subject
• The book is poorly written or laid out
• The book has significant technical inaccuracies
• The program teaches / uses a coding style which is not best practise
• The book is expensive for what it provides
Again - let me stress this some of these are not negative reasons. There are some superb books that we don't list as our favourites for one reason or another, and lack of the accolade should not be treated as a criticism.