This book was an absolutely incredible guide to the nuances of the Google Maps API. It clearly goes from simple integration, to geocoding to more complex functions such as overlays etc. I found it absolutely invaluable for my project, and I'm sure you will too.

I found this book to be very readable and easy to follow. It doesn't just rehash old ideas but gives new ways to do things with clean code. I am a beginner in maps and have got so much out of this book already.

I should have given this book five stars because it is such a treasure chest of information and most of it is error free. The authors also maintain an awesome website with corrections to a few instances where something got missed. If something doesn't work right in Internet Explorer with the script debugging tool turned on, check the website for updated code. For example, the overlays respond to clicks with the map event handler. Only the map should respond to the map click event handler, not the overlays. It's easy to fix, by testing to see if the overlay exists before executing the click handler on the overlay. If the overlay exists and the click is on the overlay, it should not execute the map click code.

I am using this book to build a mapping application. I'm a beginning-intermediate web programmer and find the book well designed. There are nice sections on improving the user interfaces of map applications, updating maps with data queried from a database, and plenty of good examples (also posted on the book's website). It's a good all around case study in developing dynamic websites with JavaScript, custom controls, databases and PHP. There is a positive review on Slashdot as well.