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Rating: 
Summary: Thorough coverage of the basics
Review: It is a tribute to the rapid development of HTML that it now takes a book of this size to provide an overview of the basics. However, it is still possible to learn how to use HTML in a short time and this is a book that will help you do that. Organized into 21 basic lessons, the coverage is more than just how to use tags to make content. Days 16 through 21 are reserved for descriptions of how to avoid the common pitfalls of poor page design. This is a topic that is sometimes overlooked, which is unfortunate. In my experience, students find learning what the tags do to be very easy. The hard part is how to put them together to make something that is easy to understand.
The XHTML coverage is interleaved within the HTML when it makes sense and split into distinct lessons when it should be considered a separate topic. For example, the basic syntax rules concerning nested tags and the requirement of a closing tag are interleaved, but style sheets and the use of the DOCTYPE command to specify the DTD are in a separate lesson. This strategy works very well, easing the reader into XHTML by making it seem a natural evolution rather than a significant jump.
While the lessons are good and easy to follow, they are rather standard in coverage and difficulty. Written at a basic level, they can be understood by the raw beginner, although someone with HTML experience will no doubt find some topics or approaches of interest.
There is seemingly a countless number of books covering beginning HTML on the market today, with some better than others. This is one of the better rather than one of the others and will give you a sound foundation in the principles of HTML, both in structure and proper use.
Rating: 
Summary: good book, bad service
Review: The book itself is well written, and I'm learning a lot from it. HOWEVER, the selling-point for me was, as advertised inside the back cover, the companion site with source code and graphics used in the examples in the book. Some competitors' books have a CD-ROM included, but I chose this one figuring accessing a Web site would be just as easy. Well, the Web site does not exist. Bringing this to the publisher's attention was a waste of time. They were neither concerned, apologetic, or interested in making any kind of effort to accept responsibility or rectify the situation. Bad customer service.... I'm quite annoyed.
Rating:
Summary: SAMS Teach Yourself Web Publishing With HTML And XHTML In 21
Review: This is the professional reference third edition, complete with a CD-ROM that has source code examples, web graphics and sample software. This is a very easy-to-use, comprehensive book for learning either HTML or XHTML.
The clear step-by-step instructions in this book make it easy for even a beginner to gain hands-on practice with web page creation.
This book will teach you how to work with color, sound, animation and images.
I let my husband, who knows nothing about computers, take a look at this book and play around designing a web page. It was one of the few times he wasn't saying "honey, how do I.......?"
If you are a beginner, I'd definitely get this book. If you have some experience with HTML or XHTML, this would make an excellent reference edition for your bookshelf. The user level is beginner to intermediate.
I have spent a lot of time building web pages over the last four years and some of the information in this book was new to me.
Rating:
Summary: Friendly, well organized, effective
Review: This was my second attempt to teach myself HTML from a book. The first book was poorly organized and edited, leading me to give up a quarter of the way through. Lemay's book proved to be much better. I found the organization and page layout to be very helpful. The book was full of good examples, and having the examples available for downloading from a website was useful.I liked the pace of the book - Lemay has broken the book into comfortable "day-sized" lessons, each covering a single coherent topic. This let me get a good understanding of a concept in a reasonable period of time, without feeling that I had too much to cover. This book is certainly for the beginner. Anyone looking for in-depth coverage of intermediate-level topics will be disappointed. Lemay gave good examples of cascading style sheets (to the point were I could use one), but learning to use scripting and dynamic HTML would require buying one or more other books. In short, I felt this book was well worth the cost for a solid introduction to HTML and designing web pages.
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