Murach has released their latest book: called "Visual Basic 2005". Like all Murach books, this one is quite comprehensive and is geared towards introducing developers (new or experiences) to Visual Basic 2005 and the gamut of language and IDE features available to them in Visual Studio 2005. I would also recommend this book as a reference or tutorial to experienced developers who are interested in rounding out their object-oriented programming or data access techniques, or who are interested in learning more about the features introduced to .NET and VB in Visual Studio 2005 such as generics, code snippets, partial classes and ClickOnce deployment.

In classic Murach style, every two pages in the book repeats the contents twice; the left-hand page is a detailed description of the concept being covered written in a conversational tone, and the right-hand page contains a recap of this discussion in bulleted-form, with screenshots and / or code samples. This layout is ideal for both novice and expert readers alike; beginners learn faster when a concept is restated / repeated, and experts can skim through the right-hand pages looking for content that is new to them.

There are no assumptions going into the book about the reader's knowledge of programming or VB. As such, both beginners and experienced developers will have something to gain from reading it. The book is meant to be an introduction to the concepts it covers and does a great job at that task, going shoulder-deep into some concepts and waist-deep into others.

If you are new to VB .NET or just want to learn about the new features in VB 2005, this is a good book to pick up.