Okay the fact is with this book you need three things to make it work: 1) a damn good lecturer, 2) Some effort to do the problems and 3)Schaum's solved problems in fluid mechanics or something similiar.

I do disagree that it is impossible. Or REALLY hard or written to impress his professor friends...it just requires some thought...Like anything of a less common nature...less people are going to understand it. That's the nature of the beast! Sure there are many places where it falls down...particularly in the first three chapters. But later on it becomes quite good. From chapter 3 onwards it is a useful work, particularly in Part 2 on applications of fluid mechanics.

Covers: fluid propoerties (very briefly!), Fluid statics (need the ability to do vectors to be able to do this chapter!), Fluid flow (calculus required!). Dimensional Similitude (this is cool stuff...), Fluid resistance, Compressible flow and Ideal fluid flow...comprise part 1. Part 2 is Fluid Measurement (ie. Weirs, Turbulence, viscosity, pressure, orifices...etc), Turbomachinery, Closed conduit flow, Open channel flow (not bad either), unsteady flow (good old waterhammer! How to stop water hammer when you turn on a tap/faucet...turn on another one at the same time of the same heat- hot or cold!) and some appendices on mathematical techniques: SImpsons rule, Bisection method, Newton-Raphson, Runge-Kutta and physical propoerties of some fluids. Answers (not worked) are provided from even numbered questions.

Put it this way: if you can work through this book then you KNOW you understand fluid mechanics, so in that respect it gets a third star: it's a good yardstick of your ability. But for all that it is very disheartening, as it always is, to learn that one may not be a clever as one things one is and this is a book to expose shortcomings such as these. COnsider a challenge book: like everest...see the hill take the hill and then jeer it because you've bested it. Guess this book just takes that kind of person: pesistant, dogged and damn sure not to let it beat them.

If you're a casual learner or not so keen on challenger yourself with something so tragic as fluid mechanics...avoid this book like the plague because you'll waste your money and probably damage something when you hurl the book with frustration!

Hope that helps...:)