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Joel Murach
Mike Murach and Associates

With so many excellent Java tutorials on the market, it's hard to figure out why anyone would want to publish yet another. None of the many available can touch Core Java (Volumes 1 and 2), which is simply the best, most complete, and most frequently updated tutorials available.

Murach chooses a substantially different approach to instruction. His book is filled with two-page examples of how to use each major feature of the language. For example, a two-page (explanation and code) presentation of how to use for-loops; later, handling exceptions; and even later, the Derby database. In some senses, it's a book of recipes presented in a natural tutorial sequence. For developers who don't need to really learn the language, but just want the code for the immediate hacking they need to do, this book is a good solution. The downside is that many topics are not covered (reflection, serialization, etc.), and those that are get only shallow treatment. Still, it's useful for quick hacks for coders new to the language.  — Andrew Binstock