To start with, Believe me, If you think that u should improve your vocabs or taking up CAT, GMAT etc or a fiction freak. Then u must own this book. But dont read this book, Practice it. I see this book as an elixir, I got at the rite time.
When I started using this book, I dunno anything about this book. I found some initial pages very boring, which explains abt the pronounciation and phonetics basics, but I find it very useful in later point of time. while saying about the author, If english is a religion, Norman lewis is a god, absolutely.
He has worked very hard to break each and every complex words into a simple words. for all words he is explaining from the very basic.
He givesEtymology for every words, simply speaking etymology means root of the word , what is suffix and prefix which changes the meaning of the word respectively and so on. When we are exposed to the root of a word, it is equal to getting acquainted to atleast 15 words. coz, many words in english has latin or greek root with different suffices and preffices, those words are simple.
After teaching u the roots of the words, to get u familiar with word, he gives some fact or data or stats abt or related to that word and uses it as an example.
Next to familiarizing, he ll test u on that words too. u ll get small excercises at the end of every sessions. Apart from these he is also giving some tips on the grammar. After reading this book, now am reading fictions and some high level english books without the help of the dictionary most of the time.
Which gives you more confidence in taking the CAT or GMAT question papres or easiness in reading the fictions of some old great authors.So my advice is to read this book and walk a step high in your circle.