This will be my first book recommendation on my Blog which I should really have done a lot sooner as there are some very good publications out there and as I read a silly amount of them I should probably do this a bit more often. However, I wanted to throw my weight behind one specific title by MVP Mike Walsh, who happens to know quite a lot about the MOSS and WSS space and is the author of Sams Teach Yourself Sharepoint 2007 in 24 Hours.
The 24 Hour series is a great starter kit for anyone looking at a technology and this one is no exception. I've recommended it numerous times as a great real world starter tool and superb for those not looking at Enterprise MOSS.
For me, it carries a lot of personal style and real expertise based on having done the job, rather than having researched about the products. It focusses on some very real world business use and offers a fine balance between administration and end user scenarios. I especially like the criminal case it contains as a learning tool on how to structure a document library and the problems and issues you might have. This can easily be transposed to any type of business requiring documentation and accompanying artefacts, I can see this being easily moved across to law, government, business and office scenarios etc.. and consequently used as the basis for many document library shapes.
What I thought was particularly strong was the link between Office client tools and WSS/MOSS, this is very neat as this type of stuff is missing from 90% of the books I read on MOSS. To admins it should be a good reminder that you actually have real users to consider, so its not just aimed at beginners. It was also rare to see such a comprehensive section on Search Server Express as a complementary tool, and a good section on taking advantage of Sharepoint Designer, how to get started with it and even compares its differences to Frontpage.
Its not an expensive book, and I hope you'll go and buy a copy.
http://www.amazon.com/Sams-Teach-Yourself-SharePoint-Hours/dp/0672330008/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1228727035&sr=8-3