Very true; I was trying to avoid Packt for the same reason. Recently, friend of mine shown two books that changed my perception. They're really good (IMHO):

1. http://www.packtpub.com/play-framework-cookbook/book 2. http://www.packtpub.com/php-ajax-for-web-2-0-cookbook/book

By the way, any good book for Rust available?