This was the first serious Swing book that I could find that really covered pretty much everything: Geary clearly knows his stuff. I've been using it for 6 months, and now treat it as a well-indexed reference. Maybe not ideal for an absolute Java beginner. I agree with others that the example code is poorly laid out - too much repetition, and a bit "techie" in places. If you're looking to buy a reference, I'd recommend you browse this one AND Zukowski (ISBN 1-893115-02-X), which is more recent (importantly for serious developers, it covers DnD pretty well) and more clearly laid out. If you want detailed coverage of the full Swing set, I haven't seen any others that come close to these two.