The good folks at Packt Publishing were kind enough to give me a copy of their new book, “Magento 1.4 Theming Cookbook”. This is particularly relevant to me at the moment as I’m building a Magento site at the moment.

The subtitle is “Over 40 recipes to create a full functional, feature rich, customized Magento theme”. This gives a clue as the the nature of the book – this isn’t a tutorial/how to book. There is a bit of theory, but mostly it’s right into very practical step by step solutions. You have a problem, or want to learn new tricks, this is the place to do it. It’s more a reference book, the sort of thing you’ve have sitting near by and open when you get stuck or want some best advice help, including code samples ready to copy and paste.

Topics include how to create a theme from scratch, how to modify an existing theme, more advanced theme stuff like light boxes and Cufon, and then into building simple extensions and localization. For those wanting to really get into themes there’s even a section on how to sell themes.

Certainly a few sections in this book very relevant to my project (I want to use Cufon for example), so it’s great to have around. A good book for all current and aspiring Magento developers.