Sams Teach Yourself Adobe LiveMotion 2 in 24 Hours

Rating:
Summary: Too basic by far
Review: Printed books are expensive to make, so it makes sense to use that investment wisely, something the publishers should have made Ms Holzschlag aware of.
Instead, the book wastes a good deal of the reader's (and owner's) time by going into excruciating detail on some of the most elementary aspects of using any program: how to move an object by dragging it; how to change its orientation by dragging it; how to change its size, by dragging a handle. This, and much of the first six (that is, a quarter of the book) chapters take the reader on a journey of boredom that could easily have been covered in less than one chapter. That this seems to be "padding" or stretching the length of a work by including unnecessary detail is all too aparent, and the book's lack of popularity is well-deserved.
I am so glad I got mine second-hand.
Things pick up marginally thereafter, but it isn't until halfway through the book that things get really interesting and useful, but by then, there's not much space left for the information.
Sams have produced some very good works over the years, but this isn't one of them.
By all means, obtain a copy to kick-start you through learning LiveMotion, but search the web and visit the user forums to obtain the fuel you'll need to complete the journey.

Rating:
Summary: Starts off good but.....
Review: The book starts off in a concise manner and the author takes great care to make sure that the reader understands the basic concepts of LM2. However, the deeper that you get into the book the lessons start to fall apart. For example the "remote rollover" section does not work as scripted in the lesson. I also noticed in some of the other lessons (ie. CH 14. The Artist section) that although the lesson works, when you try it the code does not come out clean. The author does a good job with explaining basic animation principles but a terrible job with explaining the scripting. So if you understand scripting but can't get the animation aspects down then this might be a good book. Otherwise look around for something else.