ASP.Net

Pro ASP.NET MVC Framework
$49.99
Lots of people write, but few know what the hell they are doing. When I cannot put down the book, I know the author must be a rare beast in the jungle out there!

Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008: Includes Silverlight 2, Third Edition
$59.99
Like many of those who have already posted a review of this book, I have read many programming books over many years, and this one really stands out.

This book is amazingly well organized and well written. It is not as long as it is because it is filled with straight reference material that you could just as well look up online. It's long because it covers an huge amount of conceptual ground. And what's amazing is that none of it feels rambling, repetitive, or disorganized. It is meticulously cross-referenced and each section gives you a clear map of what you're going to cover and how it all breaks down. The approach for each topic is to start with a brief motivating introduction, then zoom out to a comprehensive bird's eye view and list the options available for approaching the problem, and then to dive into each option in detail, comparing and contrasting the trade-offs. The author is willing to give you the details on something but also willing to say, "actually, this method isn't really used much for such and such reasons", which is very helpful.

This book is a superset of many lesser books on individual topics that are dealt with pretty much comprehensively in one or more chapters in this book (and in most cases any details remaining on a given topic are easy to look up online once you have the foundation presented here). For most of the topics, the only background needed is some basic experience in C#.

If you want to know everything about Microsoft's world of web programming, get this book, read it, and when you return to your personal list of what you have left to learn you'll likely find it's much shorter.

Finally, I want to repeat that the actual writing in the book is very high quality which helps make the book a pleasure to read. The tone is professional, yet inviting. You don't feel like you're indulging a programmer as he tries to write entertaining prose (if I read one more sentence in a programming book that follows the pattern, "To help you manage your widgets, the system includes a component called, appropriately enough, the Widget Manager!" I think I'm going to, appropriately enough, barf). You feel like you're reading a book by a skilled writer who happens to know a ton about programming.

Programming ASP.NET 3.5
$59.99
Programming ASP.NET 3.5 by O'REILLY is a very good book for beginners. I dont know where to start! This book shows you from very basic things like how to use visual studio 2008 to create a form, drag a control and drop it into the form to connecting to databases programatically. This book is so detailed I always reference to the book for anything ASP.NET. O'REILLY did a very good job on this book my favorite chapter is chapter nine ADO.NET. I use this chapter as a reference to create my sql connections. Another good chapter is chapter seven Data Source Controls and Connections. This book is a must have for any beginner; it's a practical step by step guide to building your own ASP.NET web site. This is one of those rare books that show you C# for every step you make. I found it refreshing to see a book designed in this format.Thank you O'REILLY for this great book.

ASP.NET 3.5 Unleashed
$64.99
I have read more books on ASP.NET and related technologies than anyone ever should and still claim to have a life. This book, about halfway through it, distinguished itself as the best I have read even to date. If you had to choose a single book to learn ASP.NET and actually be proficient and have a strong understanding of it after only one book, this is that book. Lucid, smart and comprehensive, it sets the bar discouragingly high for other authors.