This book is a "must have." Of all the books available for those learning to use Joomla, the best is LearnJoomla , written by Mike Llloyd, a web developer in London. The book takes the user step-by-step through a beginner's guide, including installing extensions and making changes in the basic web setup. The book is a downloadable .pdf file, and costs £ 19, or about $37.00 U.S.The book is well worth the money for anyone who is interested in setting up their own Joomla website. If you purchase a ready-made Joomla website, already set up, it is not a "must have," only a "should have." My suggestion: print it out, front and back on a duplex printer, and put it in a loose-leaf binder. Then keep it with you, since it is both a step-by-step manual and also a reference work.
    There are bits of knowledge in the book that do not appear other places.For example, if you want to see the location of various modules on any Joomla website, you can open a website that is using that template, including a demo site, and at the frontpage, type the following characters after the url: ?tp=1 . So, for instance, you can type http://www.joomlawyer.org/?tp=1 and see where the modules are located in this template. You can also just click on the address above, to see what even some advanced users are missing, because they don't have this book. If you doubt that, run a Google search for ?tp=1. You will find no results.