Bicycle Mechanics - Barnetts Manual?

I'm thinking of getting Barnetts Manual 6th edition, I'm thinking it would be the one and only service manual I should ever need and perhaps offer some interesting late night reading but the price is a little overwhelming. I was wondering if anyone has one of Barnetts earlier editions and what they think of it? Was it of help to the home mechanic, easily understood, and interestingly written? Thank you for any comments you may have.

Do you have any other manuals?

I have the Barnett's manual, a gift from a former shop owner, and I found it dry and a bit outdated. There are many other books better for the home mechanic to get started with, but it does cover quite a bit of material.

Barnett's is intended for the professional full time mechanic with a full line of bike tools available to him/her. It is not light reading and it is not aimed at the home mechanic. It is overkill for most of us unless you enjoy exquisitely detailed descriptions of every bike repair procedure.

I have one and like it. It just offers a lot more detail than the other options out there--sometimes to excess ("how to remove a tire in 57 easy steps"). Yeah, it's expensive, but I've found it to be worth it as I'm confident that I know what I'm doing between their instructions and the component manufacturer instructions that are on the web. (I'm not really a mechanical whiz). By following it, I end up good results, not just good enough. The writing is most certainly not interesting and it doesn't make for good bedtime reading, but it is clear and helps get the job done correctly.

The other cheaper books (and even cheaper websites like parktool.com) that are out there are quite good when it comes to making adjustments. If you want to do pretty much all of your own work, however, I'd recommend the Barnett's--the fact that's it helped me do more complex jobs on my own has meant that I've saved a lot more $$$ than it costs and I have a more well-tuned bike to boot. YMMV of course.

Check for yourself

http://icelord.net/bike/

Thank you all for your response it has all been very helpful. Thank you especially to ice, being able to look at the manual before deciding to buy it is most helpful.