I've been involved with Linux as a user/developer/embedded engineer since the 90's but I still find the Pi a fascinating bit of tech since it's so cheap you can do things with it that previously would not have made economic sense. I picked up a copy of this book for a young friend of the family who was looking for something the help him get past the newbie stage, and while I did not read the book in detail I took a close look at the TOC and read a few of the example projects.

This book covers configuration tasks not obvious to someone starting out, like setting up SSH, configuring a static IPv4 address, configuring the Pi to run headless, etc. Of course you can find this information online - you can find almost everything online - but the information is presented here in a cohesive way and at a high level of quality. Most important it avoids the need to search through piles of howto articles to find what you need. It also solves the "where do I start" problem that plagues many people transitioning from linux users to linux hackers ("hackers" in the context of the book). The project ideas are numerous and cover a pretty wide range, and can be easily modified for other uses.

At 400 printed pages and $20 I think the book provides a good value for its intended audience. That is, those that have got past the shiny-new-toy stage, but who are not comfortable modifying config files or driving I/O without some guidance.

Disclaimer: I have no professional relationship with Sparkfun, the book's publishers, or anyone else relevant to this post. I just liked the book. YMMV.

How about showing us the table of contents so we can see if there is anything in there that we couldn't find just looking up on the web. It's nice to have a reference book but often these books end up being pre 101 course level.