This is the only VSI book which I have as of yet read. However, overall I found it disappointing. With a moderate background in Philosophy, I expected that I would probably know a lot of the things in this book, considering it was just an introduction to philosophy (and a very short one at that!)
Overall, it was rather disappointing: I was expecting a definition of philosophy, and idea as to why philosophy is important, what sort of questions it asks, perhaps some names of great philosophers and what they've achieved; followed by the main areas of philosophy, and going about the same routine: defining this area of philosophy, explaining it, what questions it asks, some of the key thinkers in this area, some key problems in this area and perhaps some of the more accessible key arguments from this area. This would have done the job and I think would have accessibly introduced the reader to philosophy.
Instead the book is structured rather weirdly:
Chapter 1: Intro to philosophy as I had expected (kind of) - This was the right kind of thing but honestly it didn't say anything! I gained nothing (really) from reading this. For someone who has never done any philosophy at all, this would be reasonable, but not great. It was verbose, dodged the question: a poor intro.
Chapter 2: Book Feature: Crito
Chapter 3: Book Feature: Of Miracles
Chapter 4: Book feature: Indian Philosophy
I simply cannot understand why anyone would really think that haven given a vague and verbose introduction to philosophy, they would jump straight into some primary literature. For a start, summarising a text and presenting some ideas/problems with this text could be done by reading the text-which is not the intent of the reader. The reader of this book is looking for an introduction and so wants to be lowered into philosophy by this book SO THAT they can go read texts such as these three. Granted, guiding people through these texts will help them, but:
1) These are super short guides, and not very good, skipping large chunks and trying to explain these large texts in very short spaces.
2) People should be introduced to wider areas of philosophy before looking at different regions of these areas and then they should read these sorts of texts.
3) The reader has consciously avoided reading these texts so that they can first be introduced to philosophy... so that they can read these texts-so this book is not helping this goal.
Chapter 5: Some themes - I actually quite liked this chapter. It was a little bit disorganised, but it actually introduced key ideas/themes/questions/areas of philosophy in a more accessible way. If you wish to read this book, I would recommend this chapter.
Chapter 6: Of isms - Again this chapter was actually rather good. It was a little bit disorganised, but it actually introduced key ideas of philosophy in a more accessible way-and, importantly, showing a little bit of philosophical method! If you wish to read this book, I would recommend this chapter too.
Chapter 7: A selection of author's favourite texts - This is just a very very short introduction to 4 of the author's favourite philosophical texts. Again, I thought this was disappointing. An introduction ought to be impartial: it should have nothing to do with the author's opinion. Secondly, an introduction should be an overview. Not only has this author spent 3 whole chapters talking about 3 specific books, but now he spends another chapter on just 4 books - when he should be doing an overview of philosophy as a whole! These introductions are also not amazing - whilst they do summarise the texts, they are very very brief (considering thousands of pages of text have been written on them all since), and are (obviously) as difficult to understand as the texts. Choosing Hegel was obviously a bad choice: the book is not for anyone wishing to be introduced to philosophy! Thus, no matter how lay-man-like the summary could have been, this short intro to Hegel's work was almost impossible to grasp. Definitely would recommend any reader skips this section entirely.
Chapter 8: Why do Philosophy? - Finally! This should have been right at the start - it piques the reader's interest, highlights general areas of philosophy and explains why to do philosophy. Although not perfectly executed, a chapter well worth a read if you are reading this book.
TOO LONG DIDN'T READ? Go read "Think" by Simon Blackburn or "What's it All About" by Nagel - much better introductions.