Candle of Vision is not just a book that I enjoy reading. I actually forced myself to only read one chapter per night to spread the enjoyment out over a few weeks! Full of images and phrases of beauty. Thanks to AE (George William Russell)those of us who don't have second sight are finally allowed a glimpse into the many colored land of Celtic magic.

I cannot deny the fact that this is a well-written book. But the authors had a way of getting on my nerves for the gradation between the examples and the exercise problems was too steep that if you did not grasp the underlying concept in the first place, you never ever will understand it. Most of my friends felt that way too.

However that does not mean that the book is not good. At times you will be flabbergasted at how well the authors can push a difficult concept through. The section on 'Dynamics' was perhaps one of the best in contemporary entry-level texts on the subject.

Well, I'm not new to those authers. All their books represent one of the best in field, and their mechanics book is one of them. The text is well-organized, the material is presented professionaly, the problems help to understand and grasp the subject that you feel quite confident in your ability. A smart textbook. No one can recognize what he/she misses in engineering mechanics untill he/she has the opportunity to study this book.

Engineering mechanics is a hands-on course. It won't help you any good to read the textbook for 10 hours at a stretch if you don't attempt to understand the problem and solve it yourself. The best thing about this subject is that once you get the basics, you can pretty much read it on your own and understand everything. There are only three laws (thanks to Newton) and everything else is deduction. This book has lots of problems and they are very practical too. You can see most of the problems around you, like the one on a safety mechanism for a construction worker and there are many such problems. I am not in any way affiliated or related to the publishers or the authors. In summary, a great book for a TOUGH subject. (Yes it is tough because it is different from other subjects, where you can get by after cramming before an exam. E Mech. is the bread and butter of mechanical engineers, so you better understand it well)

Without doubt, this is the worst textbook I ever had the misfortune to read.

I used it for a rushed 1st year dynamics course, and found the book utterly useless. The concepts are scattered and are introduced using complicated mathematics, some of which is beyond 1st year level. Even simply trying to read through the verbal explanations is near impossible for beginner students, simply because of the depth of knowledge required to do so.

The problems, while plentiful, are simply too difficult. Original thinking is one thing, these problems require something else entirely. I realise, of course, that textbooks must be challenging in order to maintain academic standards, but this book goes too far, to the point where students end up discouraged from the subject simply because the concepts are so difficult.

While I maintain the greatest respect for Mr Beer, as I am sure that he is a brilliant engineer (his book is testament to that), the text is simply too in-depth. For future editions, I recommend that he go through the book and greatly simplify both the language and the problems.

Until this book is simplified, I recommend the Hibbler Dyanmucs text to any other students out there.

If you ever have pleasure in taking this class, procede to the nearest gun shop and pick a fight with billy. He will know what to do. You engin-i-nerd.

Very few books provide solid material like this one (Meriam's is an excellent one too). In fact I have become interested in mechanics after I was Introduced to this text for the 1st time in 1984. Recently, I started to collect and work all the editions of this book. This text requires a skilful instructor that can present the material in a way worthy of this text. please do not hate this text if you really want unsurpass knowledge in mechanics, because there are many "engineering mechanics" texts around you that teach nothing.