Mathematical scientists probably prefer Weisstein's The CRC Encyclopedia of Mathematics, Third Edition (3 volumes incl. code for Mathematica 7.0) for their research work, true fans adore the sheer thoroughness of Trott's Mathematica Guidebook and study the details page-after-page by working the way up from the bottom through all 4 volumes, total beginners and hasty users are content with a shallow but broad(!) introduction found in Mathematica Navigator, and for all remaining Mathematica practicionists Mangano's tome comes in handy as a helpful complement to the existing Tutorial Collection, see bit.ly/TheMathematicaBook . I've been knowing the software for quite some time and for my engineering studies it never meant more to me than an overpowered calculator but since the book is currently being sold in mass quantities at our campus bookstore I got re-interested too! About the contents: Each recipe has the same setup structure (problem,solution,discussion,reference) and is independent from other recipes apart from incidental crossreferences within the book. Some recipes (there arent too many in total actually) are more general (true recipes), some just explain the use of important key functions (because many users still would not know their use or meaning ;), and some are solutions to very specific problems, so all in all a good mix to learn from! Much material has been compiled and quoted from others but the author would always mention the references in detail or link to them (i didnt know bit.ly before, thanks! ;). The book offers everything a modern book should offer: a personal book webpage with additional and updated contents, a publisher's webpage with eventual typographical errors, the software itself (a Mathematica version is included!), a *.pdf-ebook version, a colorful fulltext *.nb-Mathematica notebook version, support by the makers, etc. So. I dont think that I will actually put the recipes into practice for my mundane mathematical calculations in place of some old TI calc but simply reading and understanding the refined tricks is so instructive, enjoyable and inspiring. All persons involved did a fantastic job with this product release, congrats!