I've just read this, and I must say i think it's a very good book. It's a collection of important facts about software developement that are often forgotten or ignored. Many of the facts are well known, you've probably heard a lot of them somewhere or experienced them, but still you don't live by the advice they provide.

As an example I can take the fact that estimation is usually done by the wrong people. If you think about it you already know this. Someone in management, or the customer, or marketing people decide on a delivery date for some project before any developers even get to look at it. It's really only the software developers who are going to develop it can make any kind of reliable guess. Still, this is happening over and over, and the developers are stuck working against an impossible schedule.

The good thing about this book is that it doesn't just state a fact, explain it like its common sense, and move on. It provides background information and references to studies and scientific experiments that actually prove that this is the case. This is about facts, not just some good ideas.

The book contains 55 such facts organized into the four chapters About Management, About the Life Cycle, About Quality and About Research. It also lists 10 fallacies. These are statements that are often mistaken as facts, but in reality are proven wrong by study. I don't think this section is as good as the facts, but he has some good points.

All in all this book is a great collection of important things to keep in mind distilled into less than 200 pages. Use this as a reference and a good reminder.