Perhaps people are saying, indirectly, that this forum should only be for professionals and if you want to learn anything go to school, don't look for a book to help because it can never exist? I hope not.
No, not at all Bart.

I went into the costings of a book about three/four years ago. It doesn't pay. In the length of time taken to write something really good, I could have banked $100k doing something else. Which is why authors regurgitate the same old stuff to fill their books with cheap content (like BobK's mention of "The Sex life of Silicon"). It fills pages fast, doesn't tax the brain cells and is easily copied and edited from other publications. However, it can also be argued, that if you don't know the basics, sooner or later you're going to come unstuck (see questions on this forum for prize examples).

This forum isn't for professionals. Count the number of QUESTIONS posted by Bruce or Darrel or others - in total, you won't fill the fingers of one hand. What do we have that YOU don't have? Absolutely nothing. We use the same PICs, the same Compilers, the same Assemblers, the same Manual, the same Datasheets and have the same Search Engines and Internet Access. We KNOW where to look in the PIC Datasheet - they're all laid out the same way. You've seen one, you've seen them all. And if you don't know, then Adobe Acrobat's got a SEARCH button.

On a personal basis, I use the forum for two reasons... For one it's a BUG ALERT. If there's a problem, I'd like to know about it before I waste my time. I don't know about you, but my time is money, and I'd rather not waste too much of it with a problem that somebody may have spotted before me. The other reason is the forum is a distraction. Sometimes when at my PC struggling with the days problems, it's good to switch off, grab a coffee and do something less taxing for a few minutes. I've lost count the number of times I've posted to the forum whilst some client or other is on the phone talking complete rubbish. It's good practice for later in life when we eventually get married and need to ignore the prattlings of ones spouse whilst doing something else.

But I do insist that people make the effort to learn. After 20,000 posts telling people to use CMCON=7, not reading the manual, not looking in the Documentation, not looking in the Datasheet, not using the forum SEARCH, not doing an Internet Search, it does become a struggle to actually bother answering some questions with the same old answers time and time again. Looking at some questions, we're heading fast towards "What's a Resistor and Why and When should I use it?". That's why I said folks should go to school.

If Bruce does eventually come out with a good book - buy it. If only for the simple reason is that he will have invested a huge chunk of his life in creating it.