Tim I absolutely recommend any Maya book by John Kundert-Gibbs that you can get your hands on. Although I dont think hes done a Maya 6 book with 'everything in' but the one hes done with 'everything in' is called Maya 5 Savvy. It used to be called Maya Complete if you'll pardon the pun. As I have the version for Maya 3 (bought after I got started) it opens your eyes a bit more and goes thru the different aspects of Maya, modelling, mel ,animation etc. Check it out anyway. I had a look for V6 of it on amazon by him but there doesnt appear to be one. Or I recommend Maya character Animation by Jae Jin Choi, it covers a fair deal in there as well as the title itself. Cheers Jango