This is one book I'm not going to let go of even if newer versions of Drupal come out. I consider it a reference book. Both newbies and experienced developers will find this handy.

The book shows actual website types and goals and shows solutions and examples throughout the book on how to solve and develop them.

It's also nice to read a book written by people I've been listening to online via their lullabot podcast. Kudos to you all !

Using Drupal is the best How-to I've found for version 6 so far. I have all I could find and this one is the most informative, answered the most questions for me and made the most sense out of what can be a pretty confusing program. Now I know what I'm doing with confidence.
Some of the other books are also good. Some were, obviously,written too quickly just to be the first available with the release of Drupal 6, and it shows. So, no matter what your skill level, total newbie, beginner, intermediate (like me), or the Absolute Ruler of the Drupal Universe, you'll find something useful in Using Drupal... Of course, if you are the Absolute Ruler of the Drupal Universe, you might only find the squirrel on the cover interesting. Everybody else, get it. Just make sure that you don't order it from a defunked seller called Pendulum Books. Amazon.com is still accepting orders and taking peoples money for this seller even though he hasn't sent out a book and several months (check the seller profile). That was just a tip. I didn't buy from PB, I bought directly from Amazon.com.
Happy Drupal(ing)!

Thanks to the great team of Angela, Addison, Nathan, Jeff (Eaton), James and Jeff (Robbins) in producing this awesome book! I've purchased 4 separate Drupal books in the past 4 months and this book is the best out of all of them. Actually this was the first book I purchased when I started using Drupal. It helped give me the basic understanding of Drupal and how everything works together. I would strongly suggest purchasing this book for individuals just getting started with Drupal or if you need to work from a beginner-level to intermediate-level Drupal programmer/user.

I looked at a lot of Drupal books. I had already installed Drupal. I secured my site. Then I tinkered with a few modules. I quickly realized I could lose a lot of time exploring modules. Amusing, but not efficient. I needed a guide to some common modules to get me going. This book does that.

If you're having trouble installing Drupal, this book won't help you.
If you're a hardcore CSS or PHP hacker, this book is not for you.
If you want to go crazy creating your own themes and modules, there are other books.
But if you want a good guide to quickly building and customizing a site, this is it.

The book is built around use-cases for typical "types" of sites, introducing modules suitable for each. Notable strengths include detailed hands-on examples the awesomely powerful CCK and Views modules. Although often treated in the Drupal community as "advanced" topics, it's hard to imagine even a moderately functional site today that does not have equivalent functionaltiy. (They really should be part of Drupal core!) This book shows how easy it can be to use CCK and Views to great effect. All example sites can be downloaded from the publisher's site.

The book does have some weaknesses, none fatal, and none unique. As with most tech trade books, it was trivially out of date the moment it was published. Having the source for each site available solves that problem, but if you're working from the latest release build of Drupal (as you should be) then you need to accept some discrepancies and read for the forest, not the trees.

A bigger weakness is the page-flipping annoyance. The heavy use of figures and tables is essential for this book. And it's clear that attention was given to to placement relative to supporting text. But with typically two figures/tables per page (!) no pagination scheme could possibly produce a graceful result. It would have been easier for the reader if the tables and figures were simply collected at the end of each chapter. Maintaining two bookmarks is not hard; readers and editors alike would have been happier. (minus 1/2 star)

The other major weakness is the typesetting. Linotype Birka is just harsh on the eyes and pretty awful for books which are meant to be read character-by-character to follow examples. Do not attempt to read this book in low light! O'Reilly please note: other publishers (APress and Manning in particular) have realized that long tracks of technical detail are more pleasant to read in heavier, "boring" typefaces. (minus 1/2 star)

I am a CMS amateur. After this book I still am an amateur but I have a website that I am proud of. If your trying to accomplish more than a static web page this book will help you understand the concept. Without being insultingly simple it leads you down the right path.