The last month or so I have been reading some different types of books (not on specific technology piece).  The first was Expert One-on-One Visual Basic.Net Business Objects by Rocky Lhotka and now I am working on Code Generation in Microsoft .Net By Kathleen Dollard.

If  you have written a lot of applications (either web or not) you will like Rocky's approach at building a framework of classes that contain the functionality that you have most likely written yourself several different ways.  He provides a set of classes (and assemblies) that you could use today and not have to write that code again.  His book is the best explanation of a well thought out framework that I have ever read, mainly due to the fact that no one seems to write these types of books (might hurt their consulting income).  If you are interested in frameworks and abstracting functionality into reusable pieces, you will like his book (he has a C# version out now too).

Kathleen's book is a nice follow up to Rocky's book because you are in a mindset of not wanting to write the same stuff twice (at the framework level anyways).  Kathleen writes a great explanation of a code generating tool that she has written in the process of explaining three different ways you can do code generation in .net.  The approach that she focuses on the most (and is the most flexible) uses XML and XSLT for generating code.  She has some great code (downloadable from Apress's site) but you will most likely want to buy the book to have an explanation of how to use it (just like Rocky's code - get the book for the documentation).  Imagine creating your stored procedures, business objects and some UI classes all in a matter of seconds...and being able to regenerate classes at anytime in the future without wiping out stuff you changed.  Sounds good doesn't it?  Imagine how much time you will save on your next similar project...Imagine how it might change your development process...