Travis Swicegood has posted a book review he's done on the PEAR Installer Manifesto, a book by Greg Beaver detailing the use of the PEAR installer, channels and the creation of a blogging application to put them both to use.
From Travis' review:
This past weekend I read through the PEAR Installer Manifesto. For anyone who's not familiar the PEAR installer and how it can be used in projects outside of PEAR, I would point them to this book. [...] This is a four star rating, so there were a few things that weren't exactly what I had hoped for. I hoped this would serve as a full reference to the installer. While this book takes you a lot of great jumping off points, it doesn't have the thoroughness I wanted.
The book does cover things like how to create and work with PEAR channels and how to create a custom plug-in system by embedding the Installer into an application. Overall, he gives the book positive marks with only a few complaints (like the lack of a full reference to the installer being included).