These are a great read... The Usenet FAQ archive has all of them available:

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part1/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part2/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part3/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part4/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part5/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part6/

http://www.faqs.org/faqs/ai-faq/neural-nets/part7/