Unca Mark's Bookshelf

I read probably more than is healthy. Really. If I didn't spend so many hours with my nose in a book, I could be out doing Other Things that might require the burning of calories. I remember as a young boy, my frustration at not knowing how to read. I just knew there was a whole world out there that I was missing out on. Before I had even started in the First Grade, I can remember my dad helping me sound-out the various symbols on the side of a Scotch Tape dispenser. Okay, that episode ended in tears, as I never got "tapee" right for "tape" but it's still a pretty good illustration and reminds me that sometimes teaching isn't easy, either. Still, I love to read.

From the very beginning, I have bought computer books and Web books. But I probably acquired four or five Web books for every computer book that came in the door. The discipline is just so broad and requires so many skills and I found myself lacking in… most of them.

I knew good design from bad when I saw it, but I didn't have the knowledge or tools to explain why this or that page was better than the next. I didn't know the language of Design. I could tell you this page made me feel happy and that one angry, but I didn't know how to talk about color. I understood there was too much Green in this photo, but I didn't know to adjust it, in Photoshop.

I had to learn the HTML markup language. I had to learn page-editing software like Dreamweaver. I had to learn image-editing software like Photoshop. I had to learn Design. I had to learn a little bit about a whole range of subjects, and I'm happy that I did. I am really glad that I don't have to spend the rest of my life looking at just some subset of the whole, like Navigation. Instead, you have to know something about nearly everything.

I learned HTML from three women: Molly Holzschlag, Laura LeMay and Elizabeth Castro. Molly wrote a giant HTML reference and then another covering XHTML, and finally a third toe-breaker that combined the two languages, Special Edition Using HTML and XHTML. Laura LeMay has a similar volume, which is also available in hardcover, as Sams Teach Yourself Web Publishing with HTML and CSS in One Hour a Day. And finally, I have owned several editions of Elizabeth Castro's HTML, XHTML, and CSS, a Visual QuickStart Guide.

Some of you may be asking if you need three books, and the answer for you is, probably, no. I got three because I loved to read and at the time I was learning all of this stuff I was primarily a freelance magazine writer working overnights when I had no access to any other help—everyone I knew was asleep at the time. But I had noticed that different authors will often explain the same thing in different ways. If one confused me, the odds were good that reading another would clear things up.

If I had to pick only a single book, it would probably be Castro's. Some of the illustrations are a little small—an entire computer screen reduced to three inches across—but the information is solid, and delivered in nicely-sized chunks with very good explanations.

We'll talk more about my bookshelf, I'm sure. But there is other reading, too, if you're interested. I hope to spend some time soon talking about my favorite magazines and Web sites. If you have a resource you are happy with, why not share it with the rest of us?