"The Art Of XSI" basically is a printed slideshow of steps you can follow along, like a highly visual tutorial.
This method can be very helpful to some (hence: "highly subjective"
but to me at the time wasn't really what I expected/hoped for.
And my eagerness to buy this book even made me pay much more
(i.e. the initial price) for it than the later, admittedly much fairer price...
;)