This is a nice book. The papers are grouped such that the book has ten parts, which range from the introductory General Purpose Design Patterns to the more ethereal Patterns On Patterns. Each part is briefly introduced by one of the editors. The book is brought to completion with a brief bio of each contributor, and an index. A large number of people were involved with the production of this volume.
Many papers are the product of a team of authors.
As one would expect with this many eyes reading and commenting on the text, it is in good English, with complete, declarative sentences. The majority of the authors use graphics to present alternative views of their pattern. These include Booch cloud, class structure, object sequence, collaboration, and interaction diagrams. There is also a smattering of jargon, so I recommend that you not start your pattern education with this text. There is no disk or CD provided with the book.