Rating: 
Summary: good for overview tutorial and for refreshing
Review: With the 2 authoritative textbooks of C++ are ~1200 pages and ~1100 pages (the one by Lippman and Stroustrup, respectively), it's scary and discouraging for anyone who thinks of starting to learn C++. Moreover, as a professional developer who want some quick start to refresh my somewhat rusted memory of the language, I found it hard to flip over the 2 thick textbooks mentioned above.I went through "Essential C++" and in a short time, refreshed and considated key concepts of the language. For example, the chapter about exception handling gave me a quick and sufficient overview about concepts and syntax. Then when I read the book by Stroustrup, I caught up quicker and easier. However, this book will not serve as the one and only book in a professional or student's bookshelf. One will need one or both of the textbooks mentioned above to have more involving discussion. As long as we don't intend to use the book as a quick and dirty "Teach yourself C++ in 7 days", the book serves it purpose as a concise priming and refreshing text.
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