I am taking a class on Firewalls and Intrusion Detection System and so far we have a book that we can reference for firewalls (IPTables) but we don't have a book that we can reference for SNORT. All of the books that I have been seeing were published all the way back in 2004, I am assuming that there has been many changes in snort since then (unless these changes don't seem relevant enough to where a person who is starting out with IDS systems couldn't understand the way the recent version works, in other words will it be to where the way the system is configured the same between the recent version and the aging reference book)

The only books that I have been seeing are the O'Reilly book and another from an unknown publisher (All I can say is that the pig mascot is on the cover) I have heard some good things about the o'reilly version but I want to known that if it has an explanation about the snort program and other IDS systems and does it show you how to make different rulesets for different types of attacks.
If not then do you have any suggestions (If so if you can provide a link to the paper back version on amazon that would be nice)

Here's what Joel Esler says:

(http://seclists.org/snort/2012/q1/175)

(http://seclists.org/snort/2012/q1/180)

...so according to (one of) the SourceFire people you best start with the Snort Manual (http://manual.snort.org/). From the looks of it "Writing Snort Rules" now is part of it as chapter 3 too. Rules are easy to start with but when you have questions don't forget to tap into the power of mailing list (archives) like http://www.snort.org/community/mailing-lists/ and http://lists.emergingthreats.net/mailman/listinfo/ and various web logs. Yes, not having a dead tree around may suck major but until you're at the proficiency level where shelling out cash for a course becomes reality it is the cheapest, and apparently most up to date, option.

I am aware of the documentation on the snort website I am looking for a paperback copy of it since not everyone has a tablet and/or laptop (in fact they aren't even allowed in the class) and I don't want to make it available on the screen of the computer since not everyone will be willing to buy the digital copy as opposed to the paperback one. I need a paperback book about snort and IDS tools.