More Eric Meyer on CSS is a follow-up volume to his previous book, Eric Meyer on CSS. It's a book of its own, with 10 new projects. You can read these books in any order because their paths don't cross that much. You may even read chapters in any order since they don't have cross-dependencies.
This book is great for both a novice and an expert. Eric walks you through each project step by step, so you are not left behind guessing what's going on. Experts, too, will find interesting tips in the text and, especially, in side notes.
Overall, I think More Eric Meyer on CSS has greater variety to the projects it covers. I never expected Eric to go into the territory on CSS-driven menus. On the second thought, if you've read his online article Pure CSS menus this deviation shouldn't come as a surprise.
Another surprise awaits you at the very end of the book—a CSS Zen Garden project built from the ground up! The last section of this project (and the book itself) is icing on the cake. This is where Eric states that presentation is dependent on structure and explains why. To give you a glimpse of this discussion I'll take liberty to offer a short quote:
You may have heard the phrase "complete separation of structure and presentation." [...] I can say that, as of now, a document with structure—that is to say, no elements, just an undifferentiated sea of text—cannot be styled in any meaningful way. Without paragraphs and headings and divs and anchor elements to mark your hyperlinks, there's no hope of making things look good.
I admire Eric for his ability to maintain balance. Some of the projects in both books use tables, and Eric gives his rationale for it. And you know what? I agree with his rationale. In some cases a table might be justified for a page layout. Read the book and you'll see why. He's also (too) gentle when it comes to pointing out deficiencies and bugs in browsers.
I noticed Eric quoted blogs a lot more often than before. Publishing links to blog posts is something I have mixed feelings about.
I find the choice of cover color quite strange, although it sure makes it stand out on bookshelves. True story: my daughter mistook this book for one of her Strawberry Shortcake stories and chased me saying, "Bring it back. It's my Strawberry." Oh, no, it's Daddy's Strawberry. :-)
Stay tuned for the upcoming book of this series "No More Eric Meyer on CSS."
