I love The Science of Parenting and Families and how to Survive Them. The only two books I needed!
Thin
I did have lent to me Baby Whisperer and What to expect... the first year. Didn't get on with them. Tracey Hogg labels my child as "spirited" - but other labels include "angel", "textbook", "grumpy" and ... can't remember the last one. Thing I found, you want your first baby to be in the "perfect" label, so I didn't want a "spirited with a dollop of grumpy" baby when he's so wonderful! But her advice was pretty much "if your baby isn't doing what I say, you're doing it wrong" and given DS was in a car accident at 8w old there was no way I was following her advice over caring for my son. And promising sleeping through babies by 3m old is not on! What to expect basically told me my son was a child genius as he did everything in half the time: he was doing what I should be expecting at 8m by 4m, for example (except self-feeding, which had to wait until he could grab my food and self-feed himself his first solids). Only works if your baby is normal, and my son is exceptional.

I did read others, but was not impressed.

I found it better to watch my baby, his character and my day and character. Then I could write a parenting manual for just us!