nothing spectacular just a primer for what is contained in the VSI series. Good if your having trouble with figuring out what u want to read next. ( )

This book is a compilation of the many introductory books in the "Very short introductions" series, and hence, covers a wide range of topics. I picked up this book because I thought it would be interesting to become familiar with things that I have no knowledge about. However, that was not the case. It did not feel like this was an introductory book. From reading it, it felt like I had to have some prior knowledge of the topic itself, just so I could understand and follow the text. As a result, I ended up scanning through a lot of the text just because I did not understand it. Each topic felt like it was a 'review' of each of the introductory book on the topic, rather than an 'introduction' of the topic. The text deterred me from reading and finishing the book. It also deterred me from picking up another book from this series, which is unfortunate. ( )