This book is also intended for people with experience using HTML and CSS. The basics are often assumed and not covered in great depth. This means that most of the book is dedicated to things the target audience does not already know. In addition, this book also avoids the hype and unicorns and focuses on specific aspects of HTML5 and CSS3 that will be most useful to real world developers. The book includes a real world style example that is used to introduce the similarities and differences in the new versions of HTML and CSS that will make it easy for people familiar with the technology to jump in and do something practical.

The book includes some very useful and appreciated additions. Here we have coverage of Modernizer, a JavaScript library that can test for individual HTML5 features in a browser rather than simply checking what browser is being used, WAI-ARIA for making websites accessible more easily, and the Microdata Specification that allows machine-readable data to be embedded in HTML documents. Cool stuff!

This book takes on several topics that could fill an entire book individually, yet manages to serve each topic well. As you can tell from the title, the book talks about HTML5 and CSS3, but it also goes into complementary JavaScript/API topics like geolocation, offline web apps, web storage, Canvas, SVG, drag and drop.

The authors specifically point to the growing mobile market, and that focus is reflected in the chapters included in the book. They say,

"Mobile Safari on iOS devices like the iPhone and iPad, Opera Mini and Opera Mobile, as well as the Android operating system's web browser all provide strong levels of HTML5 and CSS3 support. New features and technologies supported on experience with the examples in the book that many learners will appreciate. It gives you something concrete to grapple with in addition to the theoretical information behind what's going on in a browser or other device. Since I tend to look at everything from an educator's point of view, I think the downloadable files would be a real asset if this book was used to teach either HTML5 or CSS3 or both.

It's a lot for one book, but it's all handled well. Which makes this book a decent choice for someone who wants a single resource to guide them through the new technologies and tools that are available in and around HTML5 and CSS3. I wouldn't recommend it for someone who didn't already understand HTML and CSS, but it is certainly a valuable book for learning the latest information in those fields.

It's good to read a book on recent technologies that follow a pragmatic, realistic approach. The authors don't work in a vacuum, they try to embrace the latest standards without alienating the existing users that rely on older browsers, focusing on what works in the real world. The books is clearly written and structured, the balance between different topics is just right in my opinion. It would be best to read it in a linear fashion, but a few chapters kind of stand alone and can be read in isolation with good results too.

The only reason I am not giving it five stars is that when it came to CSS3, I feel the book should provide a list of compatible browsers for each and every feature covered. Those features pretty much degrade gracefully, but in order to make choices on what to use, it's important to understand what's supported by various browsers, unfortunately the book barely help on this. It also means it's not going to help you that much as a reference later on (to be honest, it clearly wasn't conceived as a reference). All in all, a very good book, that missed the opportunity to be a great one.