Browse the table of contents. You can often do this on Amazon, or the book's publisher's website. Does the book appear to start at a level that you can understa

Browse the table of contents. You can often do this on Amazon, or the book's publisher's website. Does the book appear to start at a level that you can understand, and does it cover the material that you wish to learn? (It the starting level is a little low or a little high for you, that may be okay, but watch out for a table of contents that suggests the book is way beneath you or way above you.) Amazon reviews can still be helpful, but you have to look for more in-depth reviews. A review that just says "This book is awesome", while possibly true, is insufficient. If the review goes in-depth about the contents of the book, or how exactly it helped the reviewer, then that should be a good indicator. (And likewise, when you find books you like or don't like, contribute to Amazon reviews by writing reviews that you think could help others.) I like books from the MIT Press, though their catalog is very different from O'Reilly's, covering more conceptual topics than specific technologies. They seem, though, to really put a lot of care into generating beautiful books. I've been generally happy with the O'Reilly books I've bought, though I don't have a lot of them. My even more limited exposure to the Pragmatic Programmer catalog has also been positive, though I do not care for their typesetting style. Addison-Wesley books have often appealed to me.