I do both. At first I open the ToC and go read the few stuff I do absolutely want to read about and "can't wait" to read. Then I force myself to read the enti

I do both. At first I open the ToC and go read the few stuff I do absolutely want to read about and "can't wait" to read. Then I force myself to read the entire book like a novel at least once. One of the great thing about reading it at least once is that once a while you'll read something you don't really think you'd need right away or that won't necessarily "click through" but, later on, you'll remember "seeing it somewhere in the book". And bam, you take the book's ToC or index and find back what you're after. I've done it countless time with "Java Concurrency in Practice" for example. At first I read what I wanted to read the most. Then I read like a novel. Then now I use it as a "reference". (most of the book, just like most Java books, can be dumped to trash now that I'm working with a language using lockless concurrency but that is another topic ; )