The title is misleading, but the material is wonderful. (This book was originally published in C#, and the 2.0 edition of this book is titled CLR via C#.) If you already have a working knowledge of VB.Net 1.0/1.1 and want to gain a deeper understanding of the CLR internals and some essential patterns, this is the best place to start. Unless you are a seasoned developer, this should not be your first book on .Net.

This book contains a wealth of information that is not available through MSDN and often difficult to find anywhere else. This version, VB.Net, contains a few items that aren't in the C# version, e.g., the difference between DirectCast and CType, but it's definitely not worth purchasing if you already have the C# edition.

I especially enjoyed Richter's coverage of the following:
Primitive Types (especially the bit about constants being compiled into IL)
Events & Delegates (their relationship may surprise some VB developers)
Exception Patterns & Strategies
Garbage Collection & IDisposable

I am a technical person. I have developed using VB for nearly ten years now. This is the first .Net book I picked up. It was a mistake. I found that many of the topics covered in this book were easier to learn using other sources.

This is a great contribution to understanding the .Net framework. I would have liked for Jeff to have included a "Best Practices" or "List of Recommendations" based on his many findings. There's so much content to remember, that it will be hard to use it as a reference if his recommendation isn't in the section/chapter you think.
The Summary Info could be a download or an appendix. Just a thought.

Mr. Richter has an incredible mastery of the elements of the .NET Framework. As others have observed, Microsoft development teams could indeed benefit from reading the book. (In fact, there are several instances in which Mr. Richter critiques the implementation that Microsoft has provided and offers his recommendation on how it could be improved.) Unfortunately, you would have to be a member of a Microsoft development team to have enough grounding in the concepts presented here to benefit from Mr. Richter's expertise. What it comes down to is there's a difference between presenting material and providing the tools that enable a learning experience to occur.

I recently placed an order for the book. The listing for the book says it usually ships in 1 to 2 days. Once I place the order, I could see that the book would not SHIP for 1.5 weeks! Now I would consider canceling the order, but I can't because it has entered the shipping process. There is still a week before it ships.