Microsoft Silverlight 4 Business Application Development: Beginners Guide

Joel Cochran said
I want to be clear and up front: I was the Technical Reviewer for this book, so I've been excited about it for a while now. I receive NO money for working on this book. I receive NO commissions or royalties from its sales. Of course, I do want to see the book succeed, which it should easily do on its own merits. I'll try to be as objective as possible, but since I may be a little biased I understand if you take my review with a grain of salt.

This book takes a different approach to Silverlight. This is not just another reference book. Instead, the book guides you through the hands-on development of several applications and shows you how to incorporate typical features as well as some really cool not-so-typical ones. Of course the book covers entry level material, like introducing XAML and the tools you will want to use. The book has a fair mix of Visual Studio and Blend. Within just a few chapters though, you are adding media, interfacing with Bing Maps, using Isolated Storage, etc. Some of the highlights for me are Data Validation, RIA Services, Charting, and more.

I would not make this your only Silverlight book: you still need a solid reference book. That being said, I would definitely recommend this book for anyone getting started with Silverlight. The examples therein will help you accomplishing something nontrivial in a much shorter amount of time than it would take on your own.