Rating: 
Summary: Overpriced
Review: Bought this one in a hurry and was dissapointed when I got home. The author spends too much ink on staff (i.e web standards)she could have covered in one or two paragraphs. As a matter of fact the entire book could have been written in less than half the number of pages the author consumed with this book. After my dissapointment, I went online and in two hours I knew more on CSS that what the book provided. Online tutorials (which are free by the way)are lightyears better than what you will learn from this book.
Rating:
Summary: Overpriced
Review: Bought this one in a hurry and was dissapointed when I got home. The author spends too much ink on staff (i.e web standards)she could have covered in one or two paragraphs. As a matter of fact the entire book could have been written in less than half the number of pages the author consumed with this book. After my dissapointment, I went online and in two hours I knew more on CSS that what the book provided. Online tutorials (which are free by the way)are lightyears better than what you will learn from this book.
Rating: 
Summary: Solid and Worthwhile Introduction to CSS
Review: For someone new to CSS (and whose genes are not coded in hexadecimal), this is exactly the right book. Instead of providing a semi-random survey of a given technology or an exhaustive listing of its syntax (as so many other computer authors do), this author seeks to provide her readers with an understanding of that technology. Using clear and simple examples, she leads her readers through HTML, XHTML, and CSS in a way that provides a beginner with a solid foundation for understanding how best to approach web page design with CSS.With this understanding in place, the reader will then be ready to move on to the "Technical Reference Manuals of CSS" that many of the other reviewers of this book seem to wish they had bought instead.
Rating:
Summary: Solid and Worthwhile Introduction to CSS
Review: For someone new to CSS (and whose genes are not coded in hexadecimal), this is exactly the right book. Instead of providing a semi-random survey of a given technology or an exhaustive listing of its syntax (as so many other computer authors do), this author seeks to provide her readers with an understanding of that technology. Using clear and simple examples, she leads her readers through HTML, XHTML, and CSS in a way that provides a beginner with a solid foundation for understanding how best to approach web page design with CSS. With this understanding in place, the reader will then be ready to move on to the "Technical Reference Manuals of CSS" that many of the other reviewers of this book seem to wish they had bought instead.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent primer on CSS
Review: I grabbed this book at Barnes & Noble and sat in the cafe with a cup of coffee just to check it out. 2 hours later I felt like I had just learned an amazing amount of information. When I got home I started reading the reviews of this book on Amazon and was dumbfounded by the criticism of this book. This book is fantastic for the person who hates "computer talk" books. You know what I'm talking about... books that are written so dryly and by people who write so technically that you can barely understand anything you are reading. This book is like a breath of fresh air. The fact that the author provides a history of SGML, HTML, XHTML, CSS and such is great because it gives you an underlying basis of knowledge, a foundation from which to grow. Her style of writing is conversational, perhaps a bit repetitive but that helps drive home the concepts. I did not find it distracting at all. I like this style of writing because it helps me to learn better. The book takes a measured, logical approach to the subject. I put this book down realizing that I had LEARNED the fundamentals of CSS without any confusion whatsoever. This book is not intended for people already familiar with CSS concepts. It is best for newbies to the subject. I've looked at a lot of CSS books and I would rate this as one of the best I've ever read. Even better than the knowledgable Eric Meyer books. I prefer this style of writing of Eric's. However, Eric's books are more comprehensive and are better suited for taking you to the next level. The biggest negative with this book is that there are numerous typos and errors. an astute reader will pick them out quite easily but it is a very poor reflection on the publisher and that is why I can only rate this book a 4.
Rating:
Summary: the best intrdoctuction to CSS
Review: If you are a designer used to WYSIWYG tools but would like to get your feet wet in CSS, then this is absolutely the book for you. Molly does a terrific job introducing all the basic concepts and the examples get you up and running in no time. I couldnt recommend a better book for the CSS novice.
Rating: 
Summary: A good primer for beginners and intermediates to CSS
Review: Molly Holzschlag has produced a well-crafted, clear and helpful book that fills a gap in Web site development literature. I had been looking for a primer on CSS that will prepare me for deeper treatments of the subject, and this book fits the bill. I’ve been using CSS for some time, but doing so timidly, confining it primarily to font specifications. This was partly because of the browser compatibility and compliance problems that have plagued CSS but also because I needed a better understanding of CSS’s big picture. CSS: The Designer’s Edge certainly addressed the latter problem for me. After working through the book (doing all of the exercises), I have a much clearer picture of CSS, my CSS skills are much further along, and I have greater confidence in my execution of those skills. I should note that Molly starts from the beginning. It is a book for the beginner and the intermediate. It is certainly not for the advanced CSS technician. In fact, if anything, I would have preferred that she had delved deeper into some of the subject areas, especially the “box model†and “positioning†in general. With that said, the book has allowed me to comfortably read on various topics that I wanted to know more about. And I now feel ready to tackle CSS on an advanced level. What I really like about Molly’s writing is her commitment to being helpful to her readers. I get the distinct sense that she really cares that her readers learn the material and learn it well. Besides being careful in presenting the material, she is always inserting valuable tips and practical ideas along the way that one usually only finds out about after long periods of trial-and-error. I would have liked to have given this book four-stars. I give it three-stars instead. One flaw has prevented me from the higher rating. The book is laden with typos (confined primarily to the first half). It was as if Sybex (the publisher) paid the copy editor to sleep on the job. I e-mailed my displeasure of this directly to Molly. I’m sure plenty of others have done the same. She is fully aware of the problem. Sybex has done the author a major disservice. Nonetheless, as annoying as the typos are, I think that the book is a valuable learning tool for developers who want a good intro to CSS.
Rating:
Summary: disappointing
Review: The book takes about 200 pages to go through the basics of CSS and with color diagrams to demonstrate what the text was saying. And that is good. But Chapter 7 "Reconstructing a Table-Based Site" is poorly executed. All you get for that chapter from the downloadable ZIP file are text files consisting of snippets of the CSS. But the main HTML file isn't included. I have no idea what was being styled. Also, I wish the author had expanded upon using background image files as a substitue for Javascript rollovers which is briefly mentioned in Chapter 7. I have Eric Meyer's book on CSS. That is a more worthwhile purchase. The "code" that comes with it is more complete.
Rating: 
Summary: Only for absolute beginners
Review: This book did supply me with a few new tidbits and ideas but they did not amount to a worthwhile return for the price. Very pretty but too little spread too thin. I have a couple of Visual Quick Start (VQS) books which are much better CSS technical resources. You might find it interesting though as it is written specifically from the designers view and my interests are more functional. I bought the book because I just wanted to be sure I had the big picture as far as CSS goes and it did not really satisfy that requirement. I would recommend the VQS books over it because they go much further and will prove more valuable as reference books over time.
Rating:
Summary: Beginners only - and wait for next edition
Review: This book is very beautiful, printed on high quality paper, with high quality screen shots. But it is boring, by repeating the simplest things over and over. If you need to be guided by hand and can't remember what was written on the previous page, you need this book. If you have the slightest idea about CSS already you should put your money elsewhere. This book could easily be 30% (or more!) smaller. Every sample is repeated, adding one new line to the styles or HTML at the time. Even dummy text is repeated: one half page dummy text is repeated four times! I didn't buy this book to read poetry (or whatever it is). At the end of the book there's a display of the "gurus" web sites - but not a single line of CSS to show what they did to achieve this! The author doesn't even use her own web site as an example. She could have shown how she built it and why (assuming she knows...?) I'm sure the author knows CSS inside out (much better than I do). But this book is not for designers nor for implementers. There are no useful, complete samples - a total of seven pages deal with "Experimenting with layout"!!! Things that are not addressed in this book:
Using alternate style sheets
How to use :focus
The future of CSS - a heads up on CSS2 would have been nice.
How to use attribute selectors (the book says: "The level of control that can be gained by using this type of selector is quite amazing when you think about it". I thought about it, but still think the book should have shown me why it is so "amazing")
How to create ANY layout - you can find the two mentioned on the web in 0.01 second using Google. Finally, Sybex did a poor job proof reading this book (if they did it!). Beginners should not (and can not?) find and correct errors in code. I wrote Sybex to tell them about 12 specific problems between page 43 and 83 (there are plenty more). They replied "Sorry you didn't like it."
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