Practical Ruby Gems
Continuing with another new Ruby book by Apress is Practical Ruby Gems. Contrary to Practical Ruby for System Administration, this book serves as a standard reference for various Ruby Gems. That's not a bad thing, though, as this book does an excellent job answering the new Rubyist's question of, "just what can I do with Ruby, anyway?"
This book begins with a few quick chapters on what Gems are and how to use them. Once that's out of the way, the bulk of the book is spent covering almost 30 different Gems. And not just any Gems -- these are some of the best, most practical libraries available to Ruby. You'll learn how to make websites with the Camping and Rails framework, write HTML with Markaby and then parse it with hpricot, search databases with ActiveRecord, use SSH to remotely execute commands, and a whole lot more. After the whirlwind Gem coverage, the book closes with how to create and distribute your own Gems.
As mentioned in the beginning, I think this book is perfect for people new to Ruby who aren't really sure what they can do with the language yet. After finishing this book, you'll have a base understanding of using Ruby for all aspects of computing: databases, web programming, and stand alone applications. I give it a 10/10.