Applying Pic18 Microcontrollers: Architecture, Programming, and Interfacing Using C and Assembly [With CD-ROM]

I am fairly new to the world of PICs and about couple of months back was looking for a starting point. I picked this book because i had used a couple of other books by the same author on intel processors and i liked them quite a bit- i wasnt disappointed this time either. There arent a thousand pages to this book- its handy. The subject matter is precise, to the point. The keyword is "Applying...". There are a lot of good working examples dealing with the commonly used interfaces- barcode scanners, keypads, LCDs, solenoids, relays etc. It even goes into USB at the end- and, like me, if someone is not familiar with the USB protocols, they might need some other references. It gives an intro to assembly language and then goes onto C programming with the microchip C18 compiler, which is perhaps the most widely used compiler out there. The commenting on the programs is not extensive so anybody who's looking to be spoon-fed will be disappointed. I did have a couple of problems initially following the code in the book- I emailed the author and got a response within 48hrs.