Eh. O'Reilly books are great for 'learn *nix tool if you're already a programmer' books. But Apress's .NET books are better for the most part, and a surprising number of very good non-tool-specific books are published by Microsoft Press (most notably Code Complete).
I do agree, though, that one should stay away from the oversized 'Learn X in 21 days' and the huge red Wrox books that seem to dominate the computer books shelves. A complete newbie needs a textbook; an experienced programmer needs something smaller and better written, except for the occasional reference book (Troelsen's [insert either VB.NET or C# here] and the .NET Platform book is a pure reference book. I'd never read either version end to end, but it's useful to have on my bookshelf at work).