Anyone suggest a good web dev book?

I once wrote this article about my favorite web development/design books. The truth is I am looking for the sort of book that wont be finished in a few weeks, isnt just technical and is a good read. the sort of book you can read anywhere, learn from, but also enjoy.Like what you would expect in a novel, but about web development. Sounds odd I know but there must be such a book.

My current interests are:

Planning and running websites/web design business
PHP and MYSQL
HTML
CSS

Maybe it would be good to learn more about javascript and Ajax.

I am not interested in reading about flash (know it, dont like )or Asp (dont know it, dont want to)

Any suggestions anyone? Whats your favroite book and why?

HTML Mastery: Semantics, Standards and Styling by Paul Haine and CSS Mastery: Advanced Web Standards Solutions by Andy Budd, Cameron Moll, and Simon Collison books are brilliant written by some of the best in their field and if it's Javascript you wanting to improve on the look no further than DOM Scripting by Jeremy Keith. I particularly recommend the HTML one.

A good PHP book is Larry Ullman's PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Websites. The My SQL part is a bit rubbish though.

Brilliant books.

Pete.

Thanks for the suggestion, but I am more thinking some thing like this, but for web design.

That's not the answer if you're serious about this - specially if you want to make a living. These "all-in-one manuals to the entire known universe of everything you'll ever need to know to be the most successful business guru ever in history" simply don't offer the quality, experience and expertise you need to suceed in this field.

I'm not against books and in addition to Pete's suggestions I'd like to recommend HTML Dog and W3CSchools. The best way to learn it to do, so I'd start practicing on dummy business ideas/websites and find help as and when you need it.

CSS Mastery is twice the book that The Zen of CSS Design is and that was one of your top 3 apparently.

You said:
I gave you a book on each of these subjects except AJAX but if you learn JS first then AJAX won't be too dufficult to implement. These book are written by some of the leading web developers in the world. It is a good place to start. It you want to learn about business then go into business. It's the best way.

Pete.

Thanks for the suggestions. In the end I have gone for this book. I am already making a healthy living out of web design and development, but theres always more to learn. I was just looking for a book which is more of a good read rather than a manual about technologies.

Anyway, looks like a good book, will tell you what its like when I get it.

Oh right, I will have to look out for the css mastery book then, thanks for that.

Fair enough. Hope you enjoy it