Beginners to CSS have a rough time of it. There's no escaping that tough, frustrating early stage before the light bulb clicks on and CSS becomes the coolest tool in your web kit. If you're a newcomer to CSS, welcome to the trenches. But don't despair—grab yourself a copy of Virginia DeBolt's newest book and you'll work your way through the newbie stage in no time at all.

DeBolt's Mastering Integrated HTML and CSS takes a unique approach to learning CSS and HTML. Rather than tackling them separately, DeBolt presents them as two complimentary skills that go hand-in-hand. Like a good cookbook, you'll learn not only how to prepare your page with HTML, but to serve it up beautifully with CSS.

DeBolt is an educator, as well as a writer and freelance designer, and it shows. Chapters build nicely on one another; instructions are clear and easy to follow; and there are abundant opportunities for readers to practice the techniques they learn. Through a series of well thought out lessons, the reader is taken from simple basics to more demanding HTML and CSS recipes.

If you have a hunger to learn accessible, standards-compliant CSS and HTML but don't know a div from a DOCTYPE, this is the book for you. Stick with it, and Mastering Integrated HTML and CSS will have you cooking up tasty web sites before you know it.