This is an excellently written book. It is written in a classroom delivery format and it presents the serious illusion of a lecturer/tutor standing and presenting the information in front of you whilst having a conversation with you about the nuances of Java.... I cannot plug this book enough so to see for yourself I suggest you LOOK INSIDE and read a few chapters. Best Java book buy for yours truly.

Happy studying ...

This book is very well organized with good summaries at the end of every chapter.. though its a big book, it will definitely keep u interested. it covers the all the topics required for the exam thoroughly and I liked the author's style of writing

It helped me a lot! An excellent way to get SCJP! Thanks Amazon for the quick delivery!

Great preperation tool. This material is advanced, and a little hard to get through. However, it does a great job of preparing you for the SCJP exam. The sample tests and summaries at the end of each chapter are very helpful as are the full exam samples.

The book is ok. But the time I wasted waiting for it to arrive here was terrible. A friend bought the same book 2 days after me and it arrived 3 weeks earlier than mine and we chose the same delivery method. I just don't know what happened but it took from the 13th of september till the 31st of october to arrive... terrible delivering service. Take care if you need it in the estimate delivery time and specially if you live in another country.

I took the SCJP once before and failed. I had prepared only with online resources. But after reading this book thoroughly, and taking all the practice exams, I retook SCJP and passed! I found this book's questions generally harder than the real SCJP exam, but it was great preperation. My only complaint about this book is the "Two minute" chapter summaries should be a little more concise.

This is my second book on Java exams (Java 1.4 and now Java 6) and it is a very good book. I especially like the inclusion of the CD, since I can just keep the CD in my laptop and take the book wherever I take the laptop. The only drawback, which I consider a major one, is that the source for each of the examples/problems is not included with the book. The PDF files are locked so cutting and pasting is not possible. So to do the recommended programming examples that the book talks about, the user must type them all in by hand. It seems that it would be easy for the company/author(s) to make the source available on the CD or for download. Even my Java 1.4 book had the source available. That is why it only got 4 stars from me.

In addition to preparing for the SCJP exam, this is an excellent way for a rusty Java programmer who has been using other technologies to get their head wrapped around Java again. This book's content and presentation are both highly effective. The humor really lightens up the reading experience.

One strong suggestion for the authors is to include page numbers for each section of the "Two Minute" drills, providing a quick reference to that section's underlying discussion. I wasted a lot of time flipping back through the chapter trying to find/review the underlying (and often clever) example.

I'm reading this book since 2 weeks ago and I have been believing tips and clearing contents in each unit. It's an excellent book!!

Well, short and sweet. Great book. Well written, to-the-point style. It does what it's supposed to do without going too much into "this might be nice" kind of stuff with wouldn't have anything to do with the exam. That said, the book is not a dry syntax listing either. As I said it's well written and you don't get bored. An excellent exam prep.

An excellent, effective Java guide that I would recommend even without regard for the certification. It has all you need to know to pass - just make sure you go through the end-of-chapter quizzes.

An excellent book that might be actually be a good buy, without regard for the certification, for a Java beginner. I am one, and was advised to start from Eckel's "Thinking in Java". I am so glad I did not. (Wish I could read Sierra's "Had First Java", though).

very good book. It makes studying for certification interesting. covered all important aspects necessary for the exam.

it's a very well written book, with good examples and a lot of tests which is quite enough to prepare you for java 1.5 or java 1.6 certification.

Perfect! Extremely helpful! She makes the hardest things become really easy!
Congratulations for your hard work and thanks for all effort!
For sure I'll be tuned for whatever you write from now on!!!

Readable, approachable, perhaps even to a fault, this study guide does a good job of describing and preparing a ready for the SCJP exam. The book occasionally obsesses on what I'd call trick questions which delve a little too deeply into syntactic molasses. Concepts like multi-dimensional arrays, run-time versus compile-time, and variable arguments are often tested in a single question.

I took one star away for the CDROM content, specifically the e-Book. The content looks like it came directly from a Distiller-like product with zero treatment at all. A html "Table of Contents" is unreasonably course. It only list chapters. An index is unavailable. The e-book is split by chapter. Security prevents cutting or pasting, printing, or re-distilling into a one-stop searchable monolithic source. So really, the e-book has been castrated into something completely unusable. In short, why bother?

Is a very complete book that help get certified even if you only know the basics of Java

Even if you're not interested in becoming an SCJP, this is a wonderful book for reviewing basic concepts that may have become a little foggy with time.

One of the nice things about Java is that their certs are really about programming and OO. I took and passed the Java 2 exam many years ago and it was tough compared to the Microsoft (MS) exams I did for VB6 and later, when I got my MCAD in C# technologies.

The authors are a little cutesy sometimes and this might annoy some, but the material is dry and benefits from some light humor. The review questions are really good and are tricky enough that they will make you re-think and review several times before stumbling off to a testing center.

Sun's objectives are covered section by section and the authors address very thoroughly the goals/requirements using examples that can be typed easily into your favorite IDE.

:( The sad part about the SCJP is that more employers in my city (Atlanta) don't put any stock in them. If you're finding the same blank stares from recruiters when you mention the SJCP, then don't despair. You can still benefit by having this book close by, as a reference and as a source for technical interview questions.