The quality of technical books have wide variations between publishers and authors. While choosing a book based on the author is reliable, depending on a publisher or brand name is not reliable, and choosing a book based on advertisements is even less reliable. It makes sense to choose your books wisely since most technical books live a short life (the duration of a single project), cost money, and require precious time to be read.

When choosing a book I follow this heuristic approach:

• Ask experts in the field (friends, forums, newsgroups) for recommendations
• Ask these experts to differentiate between the high level books and the books that take a technical deep dive.
• Filter out (discard) the high level recommendations.
• Filter out (discard) all recommendations that contain the following keywords in their title:
• Cookbook
• Problem - Design - Solution
• Hacks
• Tips
• Learn X in 24 hours
• Look for recognizable authors.
• Cross reference these recommendations through Amazon's Reviews:
• Books with over 100 excellent ratings on Amazon are instant winners - the Amazon community is rarely misleading.
  
• Books that haven't received more than 50 ratings should be considered with skepticism - visit a local book store and skim through the text in question before making the purchase.