I often see questions in the forums regarding ASP.NET books, usually people ask not only about reference style books, but about more advanced books that explain not only ASP.NET basics but teach you to write real world applications.

I know a really good book on that topic. This book focuses on building a web portal including news system, guest book, user registration, e-shop and many other features. Actually, this portal is a popular starter-kit called "E-commerce starter-kit" or "The Beer House" that you can find here.

The book is called "ASP.NET 2.0 Website Programming: Problem - Design - Solution".

The new edition that describes ASP.NET 3.5 including LINQ and ASP.NET AJAX will soon arrive.

So, the books are highly recommended by many professional ASP.NET developers.