What are the best C# / .NET books, that contain information hard to find on the web?

Question

I asked a more general question about the best C# / .NET books here.

In this question I would like to know which books satisfy 2 criteria:

• Really useful
• Information isn't conveniently available through Google

So for example, I read Effective Java. Great book. Really useful, and details not easily found on the net.

Also, I am reading Windows Presentation Foundation Unleashed. Also satisfies both criteria.

Some books I am considering are:

• More Effective C# (maybe Effective C#, but it is old)
• C# in Depth
• CLR via C#
• Essential Windows Communication Foundation

Any suggestions, for valuable "in depth" or "niche" C# .NET books?

Answer 1

Definitely C# in Depth. Highly recommended.

Answer 2

Here are two

C# in Depth

More Effective C#: 50 Specific Ways to Improve Your C#

Answer 3

Pro ASP.NET 3.5 in C# 2008

http://apress.com/book/view/1430215674

Building a Web 2.0 Portal with ASP.NET 3.5

http://books.google.com/books?hl=en&id=Wn96z4g5pOsC&dq=al+zabir+web+portal&printsec=frontcover&source=web&ots=4LHzW1joFZ&sig=5FYe75zdYFVnFkEyFFDzymxUjMc&ei=R56MSavDDdWa_gaY9sm7DA&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=1&ct=result

Answer 4

I found these two to be very informative and take you behind basic concepts:

Programming .NET Components, Second Edition
CLR Via C# Second Edition

Answer 5

Concurrent Programming on Windows by Joe Duffy. Excellent and up-to-date resource for native and managed development of multi-threaded applications / frameworks. Also, a really good (but long and thorough) read if you're just interested in the details of how Windows handles concurrency related issues.

Answer 6

c# in depth. you will miss an ocean of info if you don't read it.

Answer 7

I'll also add my vote for "C# In Depth". This is a great book, and full of very useful info specific to the language of C# and delving into the design decisions behind some the language's constructs.

Another book I found to be great was "ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming - Problem, Design, Solution". Whilst this book is primarily about ASP.NET programming, it uses C# as the code behind. What I love about this book is that it's not your typical "reference" book that will take a small facet of the technology and show a small, contrived example using that facet (i.e. showing how to use a GridView, but plumbing it up with a simple SqlDataSource for simplicity and quickness of example - something you should never really do as it couples your UI layer to the data layer). This book focuses on building an entire website containing multiple "modules" (i.e forum, article list, e-commerce shopping cart etc.) but specifically focuses on the overall architecture and design of the website as a whole. After reading many different "reference"-style books on C#/ASP.NET, this was one of the first books that really "brought it all together" for me, and helped me to understand how those individual component parts of an application can fit together in a clean, well-designed and fairly robust and scalable way.

Answer 8

Check out my list of good recently published books related to .NET and Web development:

http://www.riaguy.com/books/