I'm currently a very casual user of Apache Mahout, and I'm considering purchasing the book Mahout in Action. Unfortunately, I'm having a really hard time getting an idea of how worth it this book is -- and seeing as it's a Manning Early Access Program book (and therefore only currently available as a beta-version e-book), I can't take a look myself in a bookstore.
Can anyone recommend this as a good (or less good) guide to getting up to speed with Mahout, and/or other sources that can supplement the Mahout website?
Speaking as a Mahout committer and co-author of the book, I think it is worth it. ;-)
But seriously, what are you working on? Maybe we can point you to some resources.
Some aspects of Mahout are just plain hard to figure out on your own. We work hard at answering questions on the mailing list, but it can really help to have sample code and a roadmap. Without some of that, it is hard to even ask a good question.