Rating: 

by David Pogue

I expected this book to target the end-user and in that respect it met my expectations. I was pleasantly surprised when the author would throw in some of the under-the-hood details. Those little details hint at the power of the BSD-based underpinnings of Mac OS X.

The Missing Manual is exactly what it claims to be: the manual that should have been included with a Mac running Mac OS X. It is filled with a ton of good info ranging from very basic to fairly in-depth. The material is well-organized and thoughtfully laid out, making it easy to find what you're looking for.

My biggest gripe with the book is the interjection of Pogue's opinions. I expected some of the elitest Mac attitude, but some of the things Pogue mentions are pure speculation on his part. Very early in the book, he states Apple's motivation for doing things a certain way when I seriously doubt he has any better insight into Apple's reasons than many other Mac fans. On top of that, he goes on to contradict himself later.

This is a great book if you're relatively new to Mac OS X. If you have some experience with this OS, you'll probably want to skip the first part of the book. The first few chapters are very basic and seem to hold more of Pogue's ramblings than the rest of the book.