likeatab brought these to my forefront the other day. i've since taken a look at quite a few at the local barnes and noble, and they seem very informative yet brief and a quick read. they're usually around $10, though i bought two today used for $5 a pop at the local used bookstore. the two i bought are the koran and political philosophy, but they have seriously 100 or more. i think they're a nice primer for material you will one day read, and for other topics, they might be a nice informative read for topics or authors you really just will never read.

http://www.oup.co.uk/general/vsi/

this sounds great. i've never seen these at my b&n, but i may have just overlooked them. i'll check them out.

Those do look pretty cool, I'll have to check them out.

You're just learning of this type of publication now? Man, we've got a version like that here called "coles notes". Used pretty extensively by high school kids who are too lazy to read the real thing.

Ceebs, you should know better than to read cliff notes.

i've seen some other types of this publication, but not with such a large web of coverage.

This reminds me of the PBS special with the college kid saying he only reads Cliff Notes, never books. "I just read Romeo and Juliet in 5 minutes."

the koran one is handy because it's a good tag along to the real text. then there's philosophers like heidegger, which i'll probably never read, and guys like kant, i guess, who i could use some help with.

these are really nothing like cliff notes.