I can certainly envision a great book on design patterns that uses C#, but I'm afraid that C# Design Patterns: A Tutorial, by James W. Cooper, isn't it.

The first strike against the book is that it starts with a long, half-hearted introduction to C#. Certainly I'm reading this book because I already know C#, not because I need someone to teach it to me. If I didn't know C#, wouldn't I read a book with that target audience?

The second strike against the book is that the C# code all looks like Java code. Thus did I do a search on Amazon, fully expecting to find a book entitled Java Design Patterns: A Tutorial by the same author. I was not disappointed in my search, but I am disappointed that the author didn't bother porting the code examples more intelligently. I mean, the Observer pattern doesn't even mention events...

The third strike against the book is the overly complex examples. I'm all for examples that go beyond the classic Foo and Bar, but using Windows Forms, ADO.NET, etc., to demonstrate the standard design patterns is going too far, and distracts from the message.

Yer out! I do not recommend this book. Stick with the Gang of Four book, and check out this design pattern code library instead – it's got a simple definition, a UML diagram, a “structural” C# code sample, and a “real-world” C# code sample for each of the classic design patterns!