The two opening chapters set the tone for the book and unfortunately it was not good. The first chapter was filler and did not add any value. The second chapter had some good discussion on topology and taxonomy, but it barely scratched the surface of design. The rest of the book has some in-depth chapters on Sharepoint design features, but it is apparent that four authors wrote this book and the editing process did not smooth out the transitions. I believe you can get most of this information off of MSDN and Technet.
