Rating: 
Summary: The Mythical Man-Month, Anniversary Edition
Review: An interesting read, but you have to cut through a lot of yester year talk to get to the important messages. It is a book to shove under the nose of any CEO, executive or management dead weight, who needs a reminder or a wake up call. A book for university reading but a bit old fashioned for modern day project management at web speed. Speed read until it gets to the important messages.
Rating: 
Summary: Moldy Oldy
Review: There was a time when this book rocked. That time has passed. Although there is still useful info here you have to slog through so much old useless references, stories and crap that it seems hardly worth the effort. Particularly when there are other more useful books that I can invest my efforts in.
Rating: 
Summary: Old, good, a must for everyone in the field.
Review: Read about Brook's law not being stated as a law in the first place. Even more inspiring is Brook's essay "No Silver Bullet...", especially in combination with his afterthoughts written down ten years later.Easy to read, easy to understand.
Rating:
Summary: Good insight, but poor for today's project manager
Review: Although the book is an interesting read and offers some insight to the history of project management, the concepts and ideas written in the book are so old that I find it hard to believe the book will be of any interest to today's project manager. I don't expect people to improve their project management methods from reading this book, but if that is what you want to achieve, this book won't do much for you. For me, I found it hard to finish it as I was bored while reading it. Many of the writings were obvious today and I felt that I didn't gain anything.
Rating: 
Summary: Correct, but...
Review: If you don't already agree with the author, you won't be convinced by this book. If you agree with the author, then there is nothing new in it for you.
Rating:
Summary: Buy it! Read it! Cry in your next meeting...
Review: There is not much one can say about a book which is 30 years old and still be able to predict the future with a staggering confidence. Ever been on a late or failed software project ? Chances are pretty good that this book predicted why long time before your project started. A mandatory read for anyone in the IT business.
Rating:
Summary: A must for all developers and managers of software
Review: If you work with any aspect of software (design, construction, support, management) you must read this. So many other books and authors refer to this work that you are at a disadvantage if you don't read it. I was misinformed about the structure of the work before I read it. I assumed that the work was entirely about the Mythical Man-Month problem. It is not. That is only one chapter of the book. Each chapter covers one area and is generally short, to the point and full of nuggets of wisdom. This release is an update to the orginal printing of the book. That is good because some of the original essays are a bit out of date. For example, he stresses that PL/I is the best language for development. Its hardly used at all for new software nowadays. In the new added chapters, Brooks, takes a look back at what he predicted and takes an honest assessment of what he proposed. That is refreshing.
Rating:
Summary: Absolute Must Read
Review: I read this book some 5 years into my career, and it was like deja-vu. So many of the follies in the world of computers and software projects I had either committed or experienced or been witness to were mentioned I felt why people still blindly march into the dark hell of project failure, when this book has been around for more than 20 years! The biggest point I found was this: adding people to a project only makes it more late. Yet find me a Project Manager who believes otherwise and I will show you 100 others who do not!
The only quibble I have with the book is that the author sees it fit to litter the book with religious quotes and observation, about the might of God and His grace - there is a time for religion and there is a time for software engineering pearls of wisdom - and the two should not be mixed.
Rating:
Summary: Read it because its a classic
Review: This is arguably the most important work in software engineering. Tons of valuable insight here, although some of the material is dated. Much of the material relates to BIG software projects. If you are a serious software engineer, this book is mandatory.
Rating:
Summary: Still no silver bullet
Review: The wonderful thing about Fred's classic book on software engineering is that it is grounded in reality, not theory. Because of this, the advice in this book is truly timeless. While the entire book is great, I especially want to point out the relevance of "No Silver Bullet", the final essay added years after the rest of the book was written. This essay tellingly predicted (in 1988) that programming "Fads" won't make the business of writing software significantly easier. He named a number of fads that have since either passed into oblivion, or been added into the basic toolbox of today's software engineer -- who still labors just as hard as his counterpart of of 10, 20 and 30 years ago. Writing software is hard. It will never be easy. If only the multi-million dollar Internet startups that thought they could reinvent the world had understood that lesson...
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