design and development

What strikes me most about this book is its friendliness and readability. The book is written in an easy and flowing manner, using day-to-day language. It's assembled in template style, which makes it extremely easy to implement its ideas. While this may not sound like much, these attributes make this book quite an entertaining read that scores high on effectiveness. Supplemented by an effective website...it does still suffer from some lack of depth and detail, though.
The fully detailed "Sample Master Test Plan" provided by the book serves as an example for its mixture of usefulness coupled with a relative lack of depth. While quite effective, and certainly a nice feature that's easy to learn from, it is not the most fully detailed test plan I have ever seen, nor is it a match for a big scale project's master test plan. However, it is the best example for a test plan that I have seen in any testing book.
Further comparisons with other testing books I've used make it clear: Applying the Pareto principle on it, this book gives you the 20% that you need in order to perform 80% of all you will ever want when it comes to testing. It may not sound like much, but this is a mighty achievement.
The bottom line: This book will probably serve anyone who is into software testing. However, if you are looking to kick-start your organization into proper testing methodologies, or if you are new to the software testing arena, it would be a sin not to give this book a try.

Books on software testing are usually something you read because you have to, not because you want to. Authors Rick Craig and Stefan Jaskiel have set out to change that, and the result is the best current book on software testing. A combination of the timeless and the cutting-edge, Systematic Software Testing is all you need to get to work and to get the job done well.

The authors begin with the basics of software testing, including the evolution of the discipline over the years. They continue on to discuss STEP methodology, and then launch into the fundamentals of testing. Among the covered topics: risk analysis, test plans, automated test design and implementation, IEEE/CMM/ISO guidelines and standards, and test execution. For those who are going to be managing their own test groups, there is additional material on who to pick for the job, what those jobs are, and how to organize your testing.

For both the software engineer and the engineering manager, this text is an invaluable resource. The methodology is sound and up to date, and following the clearly enumerated steps in this book will surely result in a superior product. If this isn't enough to convince you, the text is also FUN to read. This isn't your typical bare-bones textbook, as exemplified by Rick Craig's amusing and memorable anecdotes and the occasionally apt quotation. The wording is clear, everyday English and key points are clearly visible. The book is very well organized by topic and subsections, making it great for refreshing your memory on particular details.

Even if you are not directly involved in testing, this book is worth reading. Just understanding the software lifecycle process is a major help when it comes to improving software quality, and this excellent text will grant you that understanding.

This book is written for the software tester and/or test manager, and lives up to its title. The book explains how to go about planning a testing effort from a top-down perspective, discussing how to put together a master test plan (Chapter 3), and then drilling down into the nitty-gritty details (Chapter 4). Chapters 5 (Analysis & Design) describes some common testing techniques, which while not as comprehensive as some other s/w testing books, is perhaps unequaled in it's readability (Kudos to the copy-editor).
I like Chapters 6 (Test Implementation) and 7 (Test Execution) because they make for a good checklist for the tasks that need to be done to support the test execution phase, again what strikes me most about this book is the easy read, something especially useful when covering such potentially dry subject matter as "test status reporting".
Chapters 8 (Test Organization), 9 (The s/w Tester), and 10 (the Test Manager) touch upon the "soft issues" related to these roles - discussing such items as "the cornerstones of leadership", "career paths", and "how to hire testers". Finally, Chapter 11 discusses how to improve the testing process - no matter where on a "maturity" chart your organization resides.
One thing I did find interesting, was the prominence Risk & Stefan attached to using Risk as a means of guiding the entire testing effort (a mentality I personally concur with), this is evident in their decision to discuss this aspect of testing right up front in Chapter 2, and continually referring to it throughout the rest of the book.
In summary, I think Rick & Stefan have done a fantastic job of describing a systematic approach to software testing.

In the vain of "full disclosure", you should know that I've known Rick & Stefan for many years, and consequently I cannot be considered a completely impartial reviewer.