Reading into web services

It's been a very hectic six weeks, working on resolving some long running technical problems with getting SunONE application server 7.0 deployments to talk to message brokers on an 8.1 / Java 1.5 platform, and then trying desperately to get up to speed with a bid in the three or four days available to me before standing up to present parts of our proposal to our prospective customer. I realise now that it's been a quiet six months or so in terms of book reviews and reading around, but the work on the bid has rekindled my interest ... I now have the O'Reilly Java Web Services book on the go because it's been three years of straight EJB and RMI/IIOP on this project, along with Head First Design Patterns. I picked up the former in Foyles yesterday while shopping during my lunch break (in London to interview two candidates for jobs at LogicaCMG); the latter was picked up from a large branch of Waterstones. The latter vaguely appealed because of its very visual approach to the subject (there are several unread books on design patterns downstairs - too dry by half). One thing struck me at both bookshops: computer book shelf space is way down on last year and maybe half the size of the year before that... all the useful titles are (I would guess) being shipped mail order by Amazon because it's senseless to waste stocking space on them in the High Street stores when each title only sells to a handful of walk-in customers.