A quick mention - there’s a new book review for Shawn Henry’s excellent ‘Just Ask’ that I’ve just added:

This, however, is a joy to behold - Shawn has created an excellent book that is well presented, clearly laid out and notated, nicely designed and just looks extremely sleek.

Definitely worth checking out if you are in the field of accessibility, testing or are outside of those disciplines and want to have a better understanding of them. Top work, Shawn!

Maybe you do, and maybe you don’t - or at least not as well as you thought you did. Paul Haine is certainly hoping that you don’t feel in any shame in putting yourself in the latter category otherwise his hard work on HTML Mastery will be for nothing. The book, which is due out in January (but you can pre-order on Amazon), goes beyond the simple basics that many of use on a day-to-day basis, looks at some of the lesser-known HTML elements and their uses (and, indeed, the lesser-known ones that deserve to stay lesser-known!). It’s a great refresher for people who think they know HTML pretty well but would like to really master the craft, a task that is helped greatly by the chapters on Microformats and a look at the development of XHTML 2.0 and Web Applications 1.0. But what really makes this book a great read is Paul’s writing style - if you’ve ever read any of his blog entries you’ll know he has a great sense of humour, and this has translated well to the topic at hand, a topic that, in the hands of others, could have been a very stuffy affair.

So, congratulations on the book, Paul - it’s another great addition to the web standards armory.

Pre-order HTML Mastery from Amazon

• Amazon US
• Amazon UK
• Other Amazon locations

[Disclosure: I provided the technical editing on the book, in case you’re wondering how I know what it’s like before its proper release!]

One of the first books I read about accessibility was Constructing Accessible Web Sites, published by Glasshaus. It was a fantastic book at the time but then something bad happened - Glasshaus publishing went under, pulled down by its parent company. This was a bad thing because, at the time, Glasshaus was putting out some of the best tech books money could buy, with web standards and all that good stuff as part of the package. Fast forward a few years and the book has been revived by Friends Of Ed. It’s now called Web Accessibility: Web Standards and Regulatory Compliance. To my mind, it’s not the sexiest title, but I can completely understand why it’s called that (it’s going to appeal to a great many corporate types who’ve heard about PAS78, DDA and the like). The author list is largely unchanged, but new names added to the Roster include Richard Rutter, who has contributed a chapter on Accessible CSS, Christian Heilmann, who’s covered accessible JavaScript and Accessify’s very own Patrick H Lauke who provides a case study of a site make-over (converting a university site to an accessible, all-singing, all-dancing site).

I’ve merely scanned through the book, for now - it’s on a pile of 3 books to read and review - but first impressions are that this is a must-have for anyone serious about understanding web accessibility, even if you bought the previous version (this looks to be a fairly major re-write).

… so new, in fact, that it’s not even out yet! I just wanted to take this opportunuity to mention that Simon Collison’s finished his hard work on a beginner’s CSS book for Apress. It’s available for pre-order on Amazon now. I will be doing a full review as soon as it’s out and I get a few minutes to put together something worthwhile (in other words, I’ll actually read it rather than skim-read and regurgitate the press release!). I’m hoping that the book fits quite snugly between my own book (a complete beginner’s book for HTML and CSS, web standards all the way) and some of the more advanced CSS books that show you all the nice fancy stuff that you can get creative with (for example, CSS Mastery or Bullet Proof Web Design). Whatever level it’s pitched at, I’m sure Simon has done a great job with it!

Just a brief heads- up - I have given CSS Mastery a (slightly overdue) review. For anyone who’d been debating whether to buy a copy or not, perhaps this will tip the scales a little.

Book review - CSS Mastery