Patrick Beeson

I've answered several e-mails and left a lot of blog comments lately about what books I'd suggest for either learning or expanding one's CSS skill set. To avoid repeating myself, and to get feedback on whether my suggestions are any good, I present my list of the top five must-read books for learning CSS.

No. 1 Designing With Web Standards (2nd edition)")

Jeffrey Zeldman is the father of the Web standards movement. And without a good understanding of Web standards, it's impossible to use CSS to its greatest potential. After all, Web standards loosely means the separation of structure (HTML), style (CSS) and behavior (JavaScript), which is essentially what you're doing when using any type of CSS rules.

What makes this book so great is the writing. It doesn't read like a "Wrox" book -- if you've bought one of their large red books you know what I'm talking about -- and it's filled with Zeldman's clever humor.

I promise that if you read this book in its entirety, you'll not only design better Web pages, you'll also understand XHTML, CSS and a little JavaScript well enough to move into the "intermediate" section of the bookshelf.

But first you'll need practice, which leads me to the next book...

No. 2 Eric Meyer on CSS

If Zeldman is the father of Web standards, then [Eric Meyer}(http://www.meyerweb.com) is the father of CSS. He has authored many books on the subject as well as pushed it to the "edge" (sorry, my attempt at humor).

Meyer's first book on CSS -- he has a second, more advanced title called More Eric Meyer on CSS -- explains the use of CSS in 13 different projects ranging from the conversion of a table-based site to one using CSS, to the reproduction of the book as a Web site.

Unfortunately, some of the techniques in this and his more recent book can be somewhat dated. And to keep you up-to-date with Web 2.0 (as if you'd want to do that), you'll need more current example-based instruction...

No. 3 Bulletproof Web design

Since we're on the "father of" line of thought, let's put author Dan Cederholm as the father of simple (bits).

Aside from Zeldman, nobody else in the Web design industry has influenced me more than Cederholm. His distinctive style and emphasis on keeping the markup and CSS simple, but scalable, is more often than not the best solution for any Web-based project.

And Cederholm's second book is testament to his simple-yet-effective philosophy.

Like Meyer's book, Bulletproof Web design uses several projects as examples. In fact, you'll probably use all of them at some point in your career.

But unique to this book is each projects' focus on planning for the worst-case-scenario. Some examples of this are navigation that scales to any text size, indestructible boxes (with rounded corners) and content that can still be read with the absence of CSS or images.

Once you've mastered the techniques in this book, you should be read to move on to something more challenging...

No. 4 CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Design Solutions

I'm not sure what author Andy Budd is the father of exactly. But his Web design techniques kick ass, and my copy of his book is well-worn indeed.

Budd dives into the more advanced CSS techniques via a few chapters on semantic markup and valid code. (This is why I stressed the importance of Web standards.) He then moves on to some very useful techniques such as background images (and image replacement), navigation bars using unordered lists, CSS image maps, styling forms and tables (yes, they are still useful for displaying data) and a whole chapter on hacks and filters. Budd also has two comprehensive chapters on applying all of the techniques to build two beautifully designed Web sites.

I have lost count of the number of times I've used Budd's tutorials on CSS image maps, navigation bars, CSS tool tips, CSS drop shadows and more. And his chapter on hacks is almost on par with the fabulous Web site Position is Everything (the de facto resource for CSS browser bugs).

This brings us to No. 5 on the list, which is actually written by another Brit Pack member and a book that I've reviewed before...

No. 5 Transcending CSS: The Fine Art of Web Design

Since I've only recently read this book, I won't go into great detail why it rocks. Instead, I'll just say that once you've mastered the techniques used in the books I've cited previously, everything you'll learn in Andy Clarke's opus will push your Web design skills to a new level.

As with any list, there are a few items that could be included but weren't. If you become as obsessed with CSS as I have, you'll definitely want to think about picking up the following:

• CSS Zen Garden: The Book
• Web standards solutions
• CSS Pocket Reference