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... were Pro C# and the .NET 3.5 Platform[^] by Andrew Troelsen and Pro WPF in C# 2008[^] by Matthew MacDonald, and that was back in 2008. I needed to learn C# and WPF at the time, and these two books came highly recommended.
I've found that reading programming books for the hot-programming-topic-de-jeur is pointless. You waste storage space in your brain that could be more usefully allocated to storing old movie lines, for example.
Software Zen: delete this;
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Lets lace it... it's not like a novel.
For me Technical books are to pass your eyes above, gather the information and get back to them when needed.
But... frankly I like the first eye pass but I rarely go back to them.
Websites like CodeProject, Stackoverflow or Experts-Exchange and training services like Pluralsight have taken away the need to actually get back to books. As long as you have your first ideas on how to do it from the "Masters" you'll be able to filter good and bad suggestions from the community.
Common sense also plays a huge role here.
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To my mind if you read anything over half of a programming book, that should count. Learning a new language or framework is usually covered pretty well in the first half. The last half of the book tends to be the author's opinion on how best to apply the language/framework rather than useful technical material.
Software Zen: delete this;
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One book every two weeks? What kinds of books are those? Did you that voted that option actually read them or just browse parts of them? Do you people also code in those two weeks?
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technical papers. For example, some of the projects I have undertaken in the last year involve tessellating and rendering polygons, finite state machines and string processing such as XML and locale specific encodings.
Waldermort
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I used to read books big time, and even now I have a huge collection of books (softcopies and hard), I still keep referring them once a while. But most of my efforts to keep up with the fast pace of technology now, is to watch online videos.
I am big fan of Pluralsight, Channel9, Microsoft Virtual Academy and sites like that. They are very effective in terms of keeping up with the latest trends as well as in terms of value for money. 
Abey
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Just got a new job in C# a couple of months ago coming from C++, so I've picked at pieces of several books over the last few months.
Was reading Java tutorials on Linux,
Then switched to Algorithms in C++ for interview questions.
Currently making my way thru:
ASP.NET 4 24 hour trainer
Dependency Injection in .NET
7 Languages in 7 weeks - I've dipped into a few other Ruby books.
Next up are:
SOA Patterns
Data Structures and Algorithms in C# - cause a few interesting questions came up in interviews.
I'm also looking to get into machine learning so I've started taking a look a R.
And the one I keep wanting to get stuck into, but it keeps moving down the list:
Working Effectively with Legacy code
My planned reading is at:
http://www.shelfari.com/petemulholland[^]
Pete
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With the internet, and sources like codeproject, articles are generally far more useful. Books have only a limited number of pages to cover everything, and quite often miss the detail you are looking for.
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What is "everything"? 42? 
Cheers
Andi
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I have several books and most have the exact same code samples in them.
So Code Project and the internet for me.
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Use the internet all the time to find solutions. Unfortunately, any time I have an Infragistics problem, have to ask a question. One of the reason I hate 3rd party tools.
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IMO books are good as backgrounders and introductions, especially for a large topic like a programming language or framework. They also do a much better job of explaining rationale. Articles tend to be 'deep dives' into a single feature, or at best a small group of them.
Software Zen: delete this;
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That is true, which is why I now mostly depend on the internet, but have found great articles on basic stuff like threading.
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Also Good to having to read small scale books than huge ones.. Huge books typically make thing little boring.
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So am i. But physical books are very expensive and I prefer to read eBooks.
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Do you use Kindle? or other Tablet device..? I guess kindle is better for ebooks, I never have used kindles though, but android tablet.
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...But lots of articles/blog posts, videos, etc
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I too read far more articles online than books. Still, I do read paper books.
Just because the code works, it doesn't mean that it is good code.
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I think the question should be "How many books on Software Development have you read, practice, and understand in the last 12 months?"
My Reading-o-Meter
Previous -> Read "CLR via C#" by Jeffrey Richter.
Current -> Exploring WCF thru Apress' "Pro WCF" by Chris Peiris and Dennis Mulder.
Next -> Need to read "The Art of Computer Programming" by Donald E. Knuth.
My blog - My recent article
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I wonder why many people cannot cope with the choices available. You are free to suggest your poll questions(s) and if reasonably interesting will quickly be posted.
On topic: Most of the developers seem not to read books from cover to cover and more importantly, never read all chapters. If you think about it it's clear why: how could a author target exactly what you don't know yet and what you need to know exactly? So, some is balast that you don't need, and some is off-topic for your needs. Also "practice" and "understood" are very subjective, I'd leave that part out in a question.
This straw poll triggers people to confess if they (still) read books in any form or if they only rely on instant internet Q&A. It does not matter if understood, read in one go, fully read, read repeatedly, practiced, ...
Cheers
Andi
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Ok, agreed.
My Reading-o-Meter
Previous -> Read "CLR via C#" by Jeffrey Richter.
Current -> Exploring WCF thru Apress' "Pro WCF" by Chris Peiris and Dennis Mulder.
Next -> Need to read "The Art of Computer Programming" by Donald E. Knuth.
My blog - My recent article
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