It's a very complete work and highly technical. A good one to have on your bookshelf for diving into, but I wouldn't want to have to read it cover to cover ever again. Like all his books, this one speaks to me because of its completeness, its fluid writing style and the fact that you know he is talking sense, since you recognise many of the situations he describes. Lots of good advice for junior managers and programmers wanting to make the move into leadership. Steve Maguire A very down to earth author with a single great idea explained well.
Defensive programming pays off.
While not as broad in scope as some others, it is a good treatment of a very important and under-valued part of software engineering. A nice overview of UML and what it can mean for object oriented software designers. Martin Fowler's writing style is very accessible. This is an important book. If all software managers followed the broad recommendations of this book, their software projects would be in pretty good shape and more likely to succeed.