Description:I really like this book and found it to be a great learning tool. It serves as an excellent companion while you work on the exam and also as a reference book afterwards on best practices for GUI, design patterns, networking, threading and locking. Through the book, the authors develop a sample application that has similar issues as the ones the exam deals with. The book is a good read and the authors have a good style. Since the Sun Certification process (scjp, scjd) is self taught, I find books like this valuable because they act as your instructor to help teach the best practices in different scenarios.My only feedback to the authors is to add more diagrams of how the classes work together in different scenarios. Not something I'd take a star away from because I think they already do a good job.-PatSCJD