"Inside DirectX" has a rather extensive look into DirectPlay (the networking component of DirectX).

For more general game programming, books by Lamothe are really good. Try "Windows Game Programming for Dummies." Don''t let the name throw you, it''s pretty good. ALso, his new book "Tricks of the Windows Game Programming Guru" is out. I looked over it at the store but haven''t read it. It''s bigger than his Dummies book, so it may go into more detail.

If you need to learn C++. Try AL Stevens TY C++ books.

I would recommend Steven''s Unix Network Programming: Volume 1, Second Edition for Unix/Linux networking. For Windows, Winsock 2 (Don''t remember the author, it''s a black book with a sort of star field on the cover) is a good buy and so is Cope''s Internet Programming.
And of course there''s also Java Network Programming with the Gyroscope on the cover.

The _black book with the star field on the cover_ is titled
"Winsock 2.0" (ISBN 0-7645-8049-3) and was written by Lewis Napper. This is a very well written book and has plenty of coding examples. Lewis has set up a web-site ( http://www.sockaddr.com/ ) for this book (out of print), where you can download the example source code that came on the original cd. If you see this one in a book store some, grab it. Another book for Winsock is titled "Internetworking with TCP/IP" (ISBN 0-13848714-6) it is volume 3 and on the cover is specifies _Windows Sockets Version_ , written by Comer and Stevens. This book has many examples, albeit simple in nature. I still recommend both of these titles.

I almost forgot. For the cut-and-paste programmer, there''s Beej''s network programming page: http://www.ecst.csuchico.edu/~beej/guide/net/

It''s in tutorial format, perfect for the network newbie. Some university networking classes have been known to steal code for examples from this site.