Whether you're new to Groovy or you're an experienced Groovy programmer, Groovy Recipes, is a must have reference book. Groovy Recipes, is good at giving a basic explanation on Groovy core concepts. But, its real strength is in providing a plethora of examples, that keep you coming back to this book, again and again, to learn the simple elegance of writing Groovy code.

Even if you're an experienced Java or Groovy programmer, you'll want this book in your programming tool box. I often reference Chapters 6,7 and 8, "File Tricks," "Parsing XML" and "Writing XML," respectively.

The last two chapters of the book, which cover Grails, are OK, if you want a general understanding of what Grails is and how to use it. However, if Grails is your greater interest, there are better books that you will want to have on your shelf to reference (e.g. Groovy and Grails Recipes and The Definitive Guide to Grails).

Bottom line, if Groovy is your primary programming language, this is an excellent book to have in your arsenal.