Practical AVR Microcontrollers: Games, Gadgets, and Home Automation with the Microcontroller Used in the Arduino (Technology in Action) 1st ed. Edition

could be better

If you are not a micro person, this might be a stretch, but, if you pay attention and dig just a little, this is a great resource. Well written, lots of good details.

I thought this book would tell me more on how to program avr using c / c++ for example interrupts and such.Unfortunalty its using sketches and such. This is probably a great book for beginners, but if you have some experience this is rudimentary stuff.

a decent book in terms of the projects, but very unhelpful when it comes to programming the chips. I tried to follow the instructions and even spent about a month researching but no matter what it won't compile or upload. if you already know how to do this it has some very cool ideas in the project section though, and some interesting parts lists.