OK, so I am hard to please... The book was very good- delivered on its promise to teach Java Beans. I have the following observations:1) Never came out and said exactly what a Java Bean is- a component that can be manipulated in a visual builder. The Beans spec addresses the mechanism by which a Bean exposes its features to the Builder. The book covers additional material, which *should* be covered, but never makes clear what makes a Bean a Bean.2) Stuffed (padded?) with examples.3) Section on Introspection was not as clear as it could have been. I downloaded the Beans spec from the Sun site, and that helped fill in the gaps.Overall, I would definitely recommend this book.