I also prefer books and have both Predko's book
and Pic in practice by David Smith.
Myke Predko is huge book more for people whose
all life is in somehow related to PIC :-)
You will find everything about PIC you will ever
want to know written in most detailed way,
(so it is not easy to read it) but it's definitivly not for
start learning assembler. It's more like some
Pic reference manual.
Pic in practice is great book for learning
assembler, easy written andeasy to follow. Definitivly
the book you are looking for!