Rating: 
Summary: An Excellent Book!
Review: Beginning Java with Horton is one of the best books published on java. It is structured very well and has many illustrations to make learning easier. A beginner can start with this book, at the same time it is comprehensive (1040p). You'll learn a lot about programming in Java. I have bought a number of books on Java. But when I sit with this one here, I really feel that it is value for money. No doubth at all. This is a 5 star book from the Wrox series. Highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: the most through and detailed book this side of the api
Review: This book does what no other book does- it goes over all the major topics in near exhaustive detail. Most books sort of pick and choose what parts of the language they go over- the parts that interest the author who already knows the subject.You never know what they're leaving out until you go to extend the examples or create your own, then the issues that the author has not mentioned suddenly stand out in bold relief. Maybe those issues are boring to the author or elementary, but elementary details will stop a compiler as dead as interesting bugs. With Horton, it's ALL there. For instance, his treatment of access specifiers and the keywords final, abstract, static, and how they can modify or be applied to fields, methods, classes, and interfaces and what happens when you throw in extension, and implementation is exhaustive and readable. Ditto for his treatment of Exceptions and then again I/O. Sure, there are high level issues and especially gnarly situations that can arise that aren't covered (see The Java Programming Language by Gosling and Arnold for examples), but no book can contain all of Java, especially if you're going to cover it to the level of detail that Horton covers it- the level that programmers NEED to have it at for code to compile. You can download the code from Wrox, and it runs without exception. Thanks Wrox! The examples are the right length, The diagrams are simple, inventive and clarify the issues they address. Each and every move he makes in code is explained in micro-detail in the section that follows each example called "How It Works". No unexplained mystery code here. No glossing over things because they're too tedious to explain well. If you want to start from nothing and turn yourself into a competent Java programmer, then this is the place to start, without qualification. We all owe a big "thanks!" to Horton for his reliably even and readable writing style, and for consistently keeping the point of view of his readers in mind, something which is the result of hard work, plain and simple. I read an interview with him at Wrox's site, and I was not surprised to see that he has a real passion for explaining things clearly for beginners. If this book were not on the market, there would be a gap in Java pedagogy big enough to drive a truck through. Thanks to Wrox's editors and thanks to Horton.
Rating: 
Summary: Good book for the average programmer
Review: This book does it all, and does it well. Great book for the average programmer wanting to learn Java. Super easily to follow and covers ALL the basics. Doesn't touch the adavanced issues though. Overall Thought: BUY IT!
Rating:
Summary: Good complement to Core Java 1
Review: I own both Core Java I and Beginning Java and found the latter complements the former. Beginning Java has more examples and source code, while, IMHO, Core Java aims at somehow experienced programmers and assumes intermediate Java knowledge. In short, this book is not a bad buy.
Rating:
Summary: Good book, a must read!
Review: Love the book. It explain (almost) everything clearly. There isn't enough discussion on applet though. The chapter on Input/output and JDBC is particularly helpful.
Rating:
Summary: Great book!!
Review: This is a good book for beginner. If you already know c++ then this book is an easy one. Overall, it's a great book for beginner.
Rating: 
Summary: The first half of the book is for beginners.
Review: Everything in the book prior to the chapters on event handling and the document/view architecture is for beginners. Once you've gotten past the first half of the book, there is a wide gap in the required experience level for someone to continue on. It gets very confusing. Buy this book, but buy another one to help you to fill in that gap.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great
Review: This is a wonderfull book for the computer buff who wants to learn JAVA, but if you're new to object-oriented programming, I highly suggest you not buy this book. Although I found the book extremly helpful, many of my beginner friends found it complex. For beginners, I recommend getting a good grasp of object-oriented. programming...it'll make learning JAVA that much easier. Please, don't waste your time with "Dummie" books and the "in 21 days" books...they try to teach you through loop-holes, which in the long run will keep you guessing at every turn. If you're a good programmer, who wants to learn JAVA, I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not great
Review: This is a wondefull book for the computer buff who wants to learn JAVA, but if you're new to object-oriented programming, I highly suggest you not buy this book. Although I found the book extremly helpful, many of my beginner friends found it complex. For beginners, I recommend getting a good grasp of object-oriented. programming...it'll make learning JAVA that much easier. Please, don't waste your time with "Dummie" books and the "in 21 days" books...they try to teach you through loop-holes, which in the long run will keep you guessing at every turn. If you're a good programmer, who wants to learn JAVA, I highly recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Starts off okay, and goes downhill from there.
Review: This book starts out very understandable and informative, however, once he gets into his chapters on handling events, he introduces way too many new topics at once in his examples before he explains them. Most times after an example, he gives a less than thorough explanation of the things introduced in the example. I'd have to agree that this is not a book for beginners.
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