This book aims at a very wide domain - embedded hardware/software. While most of the books out there on the market are concerned with design patterns, agile techniques and heavy methodologies for big projects, the largest software market is actually the embedded, with most processors manufactured, and most software written.

The author is an experienced embedded engineer and has knowledge both in hardware and software - it's the connecting line between these two that is the main subject of the book. Quite well written, many topics are covered - Electronics 101 (though not really on a beginner level - it runs too fast for that), some software - assembly language of various processors, microcontroller architectures, digital design and even soldering / breadboard creation.

It looks to be possible to build a small embedded computer just from the directions given in this book - which is very nice, and gives practical-headed readers something to play with. The author clearly enjoys what he's doing and it shows through his writing - this is a nice motivational boost, embedded design is indeed very interesting.

The crowd to enjoy the book the most will be people with some experience in either software or hardware (or both), who want to get into the exciting embedded field, or just bright and curious amateurs who want to build that heat-sensing remote control for their bathroom tub.

Some downsides of the book: the chapter on Forth is dubious. (Forth ??? Gimme a break...) The Electronics tutorial is just too fast. I doubt that people without any EE background will really understand it. For a beginner's book, there's too much options given in the processors chapters (about 4) - beginners like few options that are well explained. So a suggestion to the author for the next edition - drop Forth, drop a couple of processors, spend more time on electronics basics instead, and you'll have a truly great book.