This is an excellent textbook for beginners, giving a clear picture of what neural networks are, and where they are used. It also talks about back-propagation, associative neural nets, and more. But the biggest flaw is that the book has little mathematics. And it also doesnt have any working code (only pseudo-code). So if you are considering buying this as a textbook for a NN course you are taking at your university, well, I would suggest you take a good look at the book at your library before you decide to buy it. Most university courses put neural nets on a firm mathematical footing and might also have course projects that have to be done by the student. This book can help you with neither of these. And the book's pretty expensive, I really wonder why.