At first glance this book doesn’t appear to be much more than a collection of snapshots of various websites. However, you quickly realize that the true value of this book is in its organization of topics and the way that it presents all the various web design choices and options. The six main sections of the book focus on different ways you may choose to design your site – by type (blog, personal, photography, etc.), by design style (retro, minimalist, photographic, etc.), theme (nature, clouds, extreme, etc.), color, elements (rays, crests, stripes, etc.), and structure (tabs, zoom in, modules, etc.). Each subsection introduces that particular design choice with a few meaningful paragraphs, and explains the rationale beyond what particular effects that sites might want to convey. As already mentioned, there are plenty of site snapshots and illustrations that give examples of how to implement particular design choices in practice. As the title of this book suggests, these are just ideas – you won’t find much in-depth coverage of these design choices, and if you are looking for such material you might want to consult a different book. Each example in the book is accompanied with the URL of the particular site, so you can go ahead and explore it in a greater detail.
The ideal audience for this book would be a web developer with limited resources and a smallish number of projects. If you are interested in building just one or two sites for personal use, then this book might be overkill, but even then you might enjoy learning about various design ideas out there. A more ambitious web developer working on bigger and more trafficked sites can also get a few good ideas from this book, but for them website optimization using various sophisticated statistical techniques would be the primary design strategy.
The book is well designed, printed on a glossy paper, with nice-looking colorful website snapshots. Many of the snapshots are too small for any detailed inspection, but you can always go online and check them out directly.
Overall, this is very nice and informative web-design book.  

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

This is 1/2 of this months UX book club read at my company. I found it when I was at Powells a few months ago and thought it would server as a useful tool when I get stuck while doing design. I often ... Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

This is a good book for beginner new to web design. Offer a lot of visual ideas but not much on the academic side. Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

This book was really interesting. -Which is weird, given that it's just examples of good sites divided into various types. But I liked the notes and the color combos at the ends of the chapter were helpful. Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book Volume 2: The Latest Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design

Again, another good book to have on your shelf to help inspire you when you are in a creative stand off. This and Vol 1 work well together - I only saw a handful of sites that were duplicated. The ... Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book Volume 2: The Latest Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design

My favorite: screenshots + short descriptions. Brainstorm for the win. Easy to flip through and easy to digest. Organized by basic design principles (emphasis, contrast, balance, alignment, repetition ... Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book Volume 2: The Latest Themes, Trends and Styles in Website Design

A great book of ideas and each design concept is thoroughly explained and illustrated. Being the web, though, it will probably be outdated next year. Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

Very inspiring, a must-have resource for all involved in designing sites and apps. Read full review

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

Very inspiring, a must-have resource for all involved in designing sites and apps.

Review: The Web Designer's Idea Book: The Ultimate Guide to Themes, Trends & Styles in Website Design

Had some decent examples, but felt limited in its breadth. Would have liked more corporate categories as well as CMS-centric examples, since those are all the rage these days (for better or worse [worse]). Read full review