this is an amazing book. buy it right now. however, i would not recommend the paperback edition. it is binded with very inferior glue; two days after i recieved it, the cover had fallen off, and as i read it (quite quickly i might add, as i could not put it down) the pages were literally falling out one by one. i'm not sure if anyone else has had this problem with the paperback, but i can assure you that you're going to want to have this book for a while, so just buy the hardcover.