Rating:  - Buy "C# Essentials" Instead.
Book is fluff and filler without much useful information.
If you want a C# language refrence or you want to learn C#, look at "C# Essentials, Second Edition" By Ben Albahari et. Al.
Jesse Liberty clearly writes books to make money, not because he is good at it. This and his ASP.NET book have lots of filler and little valuable content. Both books are going back to O'Rielly with a letter of complaint.
I can strongly suggest Albahari's book, it is incredibly concise, about 1/3 the size of Mr. Liberty's book, and it covers far more of the C# language than Jesse's book.
Rating:  - Not the best book on C#
This is my first book on C# and it did not take me long to
realize that I've picked up the wrong book. I'm not sure if there is a better book on the subject, but as an experienced teacher and active programmer I can see a number of poor spots in the text and in the style of teaching. One example: examples. Those are really strange. Using just DateTime properties in discussing OOP is I think a bad choice.
Is this book good for novice readers? I think it's not. For experienced programmers moving from, let's say, VB6 to C# (like myself)? Not at all. Not the best book on C# and on computer programming topics in particular. It's not the first time when the popularity of the book might not be right sign for book buyers. And vice versa.
Rating:  - The best overall C# book to date.
This is simply an excellent book, and probably the best overall C# book on the market today. Jesse has a very comfortable style of presenting the salient points of C# in theory and practice. This has to be read, and thereafter referenced, by any programmer working with C# (including the 2005 Beta versions), or planning to do so. Furthermore, source code and other info is available on Jesse's website.
Rating:  - easy transition to C# from Java, if you want to
[A review of the 4th edition 2005]
As a java programmer, reading a C# book is like wandering into a parallel universe. Most things are different, but everything is recognisable. Liberty walks us through the syntax of C# and then how to program in it. All the nice things in Java can be found in C#. Strong typing. Automatic garbage collection. Interfaces. Introspection... As the author mentions, C# came out in 2000, while Java did so in 96. Those 4 years let C#'s designers effectively make it a superset of Java.
Some of you who might be tempted to read this book will be Java programmers. Well, as a Java programmer, I'd have to say that if you like Java, then intrinsically, you should also like C#. If you have to shift, for career reasons perhaps, then this book might be reassuring. You can re-express your expertise in C# with relatively little effort. The syntax is not too dis-similar. Likewise, the code snippets, necessarily short though they are, will probably follow the same logical ordering as in Java.
Rating: - Want to learn C#? Buy this book.
I read some criticisms of the earlier versions of this book. I think they're all wrong. This is a great book if you want to learn C#, not Windows Forms, ASP.NET. The title is Programming C# not Windows Forms in C#. If you want a thorough coverage of C#2.0 this is the book to buy.
Coming from a C++ and Java background the differences and similarities are highlighted but could easily be skipped over if the reader has no previous knowledge of Java or C++(also VB6 and VB.NET).
Also another great thing that this book has been criticised for is the insistance on lots of code samples. Wow people complaining about code samples?!! I mean what do people expect from a book about programming?! UML diagrams? It's code heavy but the code is not bloated and clearly shows the practical use of the language feature. A few lines of code says a thousand words. Also typing in code samples makes it stick, how many times do you think you know something until you sit at the keyboard and say 'Wait how do I do that again?'?
Also Jesse Liberty's writing style is very easy to follow, I found that if I read this book at the keyboard or away from it that I was still taking in the content.
So if you really want to learn C# and not have to take onboard a library load of Microsoft marketing spiel then buy this book. (Also see Jesse Liberty's OnDotNet articles too at http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/au/239 )
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