Reading Tech books, aka How do you eat your elephant?

Mostly a mix of everything you mentioned.

I half-skim through the book and do some of the exercises, then use it as reference if stackoverflow doesn't have an answer, then realize stackoverflow has all the answers and then use the book as a stylized paperweight.

In all honesty, tech books that the large publishers put out tend to be lagging behind all the progress in web one way or another. It might just be me, but I'm at the point where the API itself and the occasional blog post/stackoverflow answer is pretty solid.

It really depends on the book.

I've recognized four categories when it comes to tech books:

• tutorial — teaches you about a technology by guiding you through a project or a bunch of projects (build a blog/social site/game etc); beginner
• cookbook — gives you a bunch of real world examples/problem-solutions; intermediate/advanced
• reference — a book you'll grab from time to time to look something up; intermediate/advanced
• advanced — usually target a specific part of a technology, often describing complex theoretical concepts; advanced

Most tech books fall into one of those categories, or are a combination of two categories. I'm going to give examples from the world of JavaScript, as that's what I'm most familiar with.

If a book is a tutorial, I'll usually follow along, typing all the exercises, even if the first couple of chapters are nothing new to me. Getting some practice never hurts. Examples: Eloquent Javascript, Node.js in Action

Cookbooks I skim through, paying more attention to chapters that interest me. I grab them when I need real world solutions. Examples: Effective JavaScript, Node.js in Practice

Reference books I avoid. These days, things evolve so quickly that a reference book can become outdated in 6 months. As they're usually the most expensive, I find them to be a waste of money. I'll rather take a look at the official documentation. Examples: none (like I said, I avoid these :-) )

Advanced books are the fun ones. I enjoy reading them but I rarely go through examples. Most of the examples in such books are theoretical. Examples: You Don't Know JS, JavaScript: The Good Parts