The best thing about this book is the coverage and organization of the material. Sayood covers a wide variety of compression topics without getting into the nitty gritty details of them all. Thats why its an "Introductory" book. This book is a valuable resource for those who want to know the basics of various compression techniques and can be used as a starting point for further details. Some topics like arithmetic coding are covered in more detail than others. The book is also organized nicely with mathematical foundations provided as and when necessary.