Rating: 
Summary: Not enough detail
Review: This book is good at covering a wide range of details, but I wouldn't recommend it for an in-depth knowledge of Websphere, especially if you're a developer.
Rating: 
Summary: A very readable book
Review: This book is very readable and balances the need for covering a large number of topics (EJB, JSP, JMS, JNDI, Web Services, etc.), with the need to give the reader some practical hand-on experience with WebSphere. While the coverage might not be as deep as you want, you have to keep in mind this is a 1000-pager.One criticism, though, is that I did have a couple of problems with one of the examples.
Rating:
Summary: Up-to-date, with superb coverage
Review: This is one of the best development reference books I've read. On a subject that is broad and deep, Ben-Natan and Sassoon (also the authors of the IBM WebSphere Starter Kit) do an outstanding job of covering the WebSphere product line with a broad brush, while diving into detail when needed. It reads like a cross between a tutorial and a reference, and I find their prose actually fun to read (is that allowed in a technical book?). Importantly, the book is current - WebSphere has changed significantly over the past year.
Rating: 
Summary: Great reference - best for developers
Review: Very good all round coverage, very complete. I give it 5 stars for development topics and for deployment topics and somewhere between 3 and 4 stars for administration topics. Much more readable than the redbooks.
Rating:
Summary: Great source of information
Review: We were looking for a book that would encompass a broad range of web application related features and this book really came through! I was especially glad to see Web services and J2EE discussed, and in an easy to understand, well written format. I am planning to keep track of upcoming work from the same authors! I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to learn more not only about the websphere application server, but some other new and exciting technologies as well. Loved the examples!
Rating: 
Summary: Not a good administration guide
Review: When I purchased this book I was in the process of upgrading several Websphere servers from 3.5 to 4.0. I was looking for a book to help understand some of the administrative features of 4.0(security, performance tuning, application troubleshooting). Of the 1000 pages only about 250 are related to administering Websphere. The rest of the book reads more like a Java programming refrence. There is some coverage for administration but not much detail. A good example of this is the Windows installation instructions. The book breezes over the install in two pages. The Linux install is given even less coverage and there is little mention of other platforms. I ended up going back to the IBM Redbooks.
If I had to choose of the administration resources currently available I would start with the Redbooks, then the Websphere Application Server Bible and lastly this book.
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