XHTML for Dummies is a solid INTRODUCTION to XHTML. If you have already reached the intermediate level, then this book is for you. However, if you want to design websites and don't know where to start, then give this book a shot.

Look Elsewhere
Slap "for dummies" on a book and you will get the dummies to buy it. :) This book just wears you out with all the extra chit-chat that really never gets to the point. I have read a few dummies books for programming languages and they are really not all that good because you can buy more comprehensive books that cover everything.

Not for Your Average Dummy
While this book is written in plain English and follows the usual Dummies model it is not a start-from-scratch tutorial. The author does not state this explicitly but in order to use this book effectively (because of the way it is written) you really need to have HTML under your belt before you take on XHTML.

This book is written from that perspective and is really more of a reference book for looking up various XHTML elements or rules. It is not very useful as a beginning tool for learning how to code in XHTML unless you are already familiar with the rules and ways of HTML.

Other important aspects like Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) are given such cursory treatment that it really makes you feel like more of a dummy after reading it. Other aspects such as the relationship between HTML, XHTML and XML are explained in a ways that just didn't make sense to me but then maybe I'm just a bigger dummy than the author anticipated.

If you have a working knowledge of HTML then this book will probably suffice but if you are just getting started then perhaps it would be better to look elsewhere for an XHTML how-to.

The title should be "XHTML for highly motivated dummies"
If you're a true dummy (as I am sometimes), this book really is not for you. You would need to be a "dummy who is highly motivated and has lots of time to learn XHTML." You would want to be a "dummy who already has some familiarity with HTML but wants to get to the next level" or a "dummy with an extraordinarily high IQ but low self-esteem or garbled speech or dilated pupils, hence the (misplaced) dummy label." If however, you have the intelligence, the patience, the time, energy, motivation and personal ambition to wade through this long and highly technical (but written in plain language) book, you could conceivably learn XHTML, make lots of money as an XHTML programmer, and nobody, I mean NOBODY, would call you a "dummy" again.