I've just finished reading asp.net Ajax in action by Alessandro Gallo, David Barkol and Rama Krishna Vavilala. ISBN-10: 1933988142
My philosophy about javascript can be summed up in one word "yuk!" I keep hoping that the need to learn javascript will pass as the tools catch up and extend the .net dev environment to the browser client. This is happening with much better tools for debugging and deploying javascript in vs 2008. Still i'm a curious person and am embarrased to admit how little javascript I know and use.
One thing this book gave me was a very good education on javascript and the very powerful engine built into all browsers and i'm walking away with a much better apprciation for what is there and how to use it. After reading the javascript chapter i'll no longer hesitate to use javascript where required.
On the AJAX front the book does a great job of explaining what the simple sever side Microsoft tools will and won't do and explains the events on the browser side in great detail. This is further expanded to describe the interaction with server side events. This all greatly expanded my knowledge of the page life cycle at the browser end.
All of the discussions are with detailed step by step examples in code which i liked a lot.
Great job guys!