I was looking for a book that covered the basics of LDAP, went through server configuration, schema basics and best practices, and access for a scripting language (e.g. Perl.) I got what I wanted with this book, save the server configuration portion. There was some information on servers, but nothing on how to set one up or get it going. Which makes sense because each server is different, but it would have been nice to see at least one, perhaps OpenLDAP.
Chapters one and two stand out as an ideal introduction to the history of LDAP, it's current structure, and the basics of LDAP schema. Chapter nine, on accessing LDAP operational data, is excellent. The explanations are great, graphics are used effectively, and the code samples are concise.
The only two drawbacks that I can think of are the lack of a server setup and configuration chapter, and the books slight emphasis on Perl as opposed to Java. I personally like the Perl side, but I can see how some folks might prefer Java. There are a lot of Java examples, but there are more examples in Perl.