Mr. Dake's book is unique -- reading it is like working side-by-side with an exceptionally intelligent, erudite, experienced engineer. Despite the author's wry conversational style, this is not a light volume that can be absorbed by speed-reading. The author is sharing decades worth of real-world experience, and it merits close study.

For example, after all the thick volumes that have been written on oil well testing, who would expect that there could be anything left to say? Yet Dake's approach to well testing is eye-opening, and will certainly influence this engineer's approach to designing & interpreting well tests.

Experienced engineers may find themselves wanting to argue with some of the author's opinions & recommendations, but they will conclude that the time they invested in studying this book was well spent.