Rating: 
Summary: Scratching the surface
Review: A couple of things are not very hard in Emacs. Once you have a new major-mode, it's pretty easy to figure out how it works, by pressing C-h b or C-h m. This book is about the easy stuff; it covers a lot of major- and minor modes. However, it hardly tells you anything at all about the way Emacs is structured and configured. And that is one of the hardest things to figure out when you're starting to use Emacs. (I know by experience, I had to go through quite some pain before I was able to work with it properly.)So if you want more verbose explanations of major Emacs modes, this is the book you want. If you want to figure out how to customize stuff to your needs, this is not the book you want.
Rating: 
Summary: Excellent reference manual
Review: An excellent book, very thorough with clear examples and explanations. If you already know emacs or want to learn, this book is a must. I've been using emacs for 2 years now but I still learnt alot of new things from this book. I cannot recommend it highly enough.
Rating:
Summary: O'Reilly quality and nothing less.
Review: Before this book, I was using the Brief keybindings on GNU Emacs. After reading this book, when I still occasionally use Brief, it now emulates Emacs. 'Nuff said.
(An updated release is in order, though, for the newer versions of Emacs).
Rating: 
Summary: Good for beginners
Review: But the part on Lisp programming is very bad. Furthermore, it doesn't tell you how to debug a C program, and it doesn't mention xemacs.
Rating:
Summary: Good one.
Review: C-u 100 M-x read-this-book If only the key combinations were like vi's. Those two finger combinations tire me.
Rating: 
Summary: A great tool, a good introduction
Review: Emacs is not just a text editor. It is a true power tool, first of its class and still the best. This book uncovers the full range of emacs capabilities in a friendly and competent manner. It abandons the traditional Meta key terminology in favor of the ESC key binding, a terrible decision that just adds to the confusion. I can overlook this flaw in the book, but it is unacceptable in the companion pocket reference.
Rating:
Summary: Stuff you never knew even existed plus Eric Raymond :)
Review: Great book .... I've used emacs for 4 years (right around) and i've gained a wealth of knowledge that i never knew .... So; if your going to use Emacs -- get this ... actually I'd get the 3rd edition -- but you still can't go wrong with this -- even if you are using 21.3 ;-)
Plus Eric Raymond even has contribution involved (can't help it ... I'm a fan) so had to mention that.
Rating:
Summary: easy-to-follow guide to Emacs
Review: I first learned Emacs by reading the Tutorial (C-h t). While it suffices to get me started, I notice that there are a large chunk of Emacs I haven't explorered and don't know where to start. That's the motivation of my reading this book. Argubly I can learn all the content of the book from Emacs on-line help, but I found that the easy-to-follow, tutorial-like styles of the book is more accessible than reference-style on-line help.
The 2nd ed is outdated, though. You may want to check the latest 3rd ed.
Rating:
Summary: Learning GNU emacs
Review: I found this book to be not that good. It is a bit long winded, I had a hard time using the index to find things that I was looking for. It helped me get a bit more expertise but didn't help me get to a very good level of expertise. I rarely use this book now, I would recommend looking else where for a better book to both learn and use as a reference. Wrong first buy or only buy.
Rating:
Summary: An excellent book for most Emacs users
Review: I have been a vi user for a long time (6 years) and never thought I needed an alternative. This book has shown me the wonderful world of Emacs and its many modes. For very fast editing of text files and search/replace operations, vi is still the best. But for anything else, Emacs is a real time saver. I work a lot with the Fortran and LaTeX modes (with the AUCTeX package) and they both have saved me countless keystrokes, particularly with LaTeX. I find it convenient to keep this book nearby for reference as Emacs' has far too many commands to keep in one's head. It is *certainly* a very good introductory and reference book to Emacs. I will not write Lisp code in my life and the information given here is sufficient for me. Another user has mentioned that rtin and Lynx are better, but most often, you have install another dozen packages before you can use them (atleast if you *don't* use a Linux machine). Gnus works well enough for my occasional newsreading. I highly recommend this book for the 95% that are not too interested in heavy customization or esoteric uses. I most certainly will buy an extra copy to keep as a reference.
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