At the risk of being booed and jeered out of the list, I feel I should
state my reasons for not buying a book on the subject just yet.
I'm doing XML currently as a postgrad, there has been no text listed
for the subject as the lecturer doesn't feel there is a book that
covers the subject matter of XML (in it's broadest sence ) well
enough. A friend
of mine has XML in a nutshell which has been helpful to a point, but
as it is a nutshell book, it obviously doesn't have indepth examples.
Even the Formatting Objects stuff left us a bit unsure.
As you've already surmised, this list is unparelleled as a resource on XSL.
Not only do we have implementors and hard-core developers and users of
XSLT, but also experts in all kinds of XML-related issues that have some
bearing on XSL (the nitty-gritty of character encoding; browser tips and
tricks; XML applications such as web services, DocBook, TEI, SVG;
name-your-programming-language etc. etc.), as well as people who make their
living doing XML and XSL design and consulting. And trainers and yes, the
authors of the books. In other words, the bench is very deep. Yet it's not
just an insider's list: we get lots of traffic from newbies tackling their
very first problem in XSLT, sometimes in XML period.