Art of Java: competition?

Greetings Mr Ford,
The book sounds like a great resource; the book I read on Struts only answered the basic nuts & bolts questions and didn't tackle the tougher issues.
What are the closest competitors to your book, and what makes your book the one to buy?
Best regards,
Jeff

Jeff -

What are the closest competitors to your book, and what makes your book the one to buy?

The biggest competitor isn't a single book (which is one of the selling points). There is another framework book (Java Frameworks and Components : Accelerate Your Web Application Development by Nash), but it seems more suited to building frameworks than using them. Of course, each of the frameworks I cover have books dedicated just to them. However, none of them try to make a direct comparison to other frameworks. Nor to any of the other books provide criteria that you can use to judge frameworks for yourself.
The best practices section of my book is similar to dozens of best practices books, but not the same. Most of the best practices books out there are very academic -- talking about patterns and such from a very high level. The examples don't deal with messy real-world stuff, like database connectivity and how to manage validations gracefully. I have tried to make my book as practical as possible, and think that is one of its best selling points.
Besides, how many Java web books have a naked cannibal on the cover?

But you should buy it anyway.