Each section explains the topic and gives various standpoints that have been taken, often with reference to the included bite-size excerpts (normally about 10 pages) of important writings by famous philosophers.

It is accessible to complete beginners, and makes the subject of philosophy much less dautning. The readings are convenient, and save you having to read through a philsopher's entire writing to get to the important bits.

The problems are
1. Sober sways readers to his own opinions on arguments that are far from conclusive.
2. He introduces his own terms - The 'Surprise Principle' and 'The Only Game in Town Fallacy' - Better if he used terms that are more widely accepted.
3. It is called 'Core Questions', but it is questionable whether either the issues of religion or the mind are questions in philosophy at all anymore, or if the former is part of theology and the latter science.

Still, useful introduction and more interesting and modern than the usual chronological introductions, like Copleston or Russell

Just as valuable as Sober's lucid lectures are the sections of primary text that he liberally excerpts. Generous portions of Sartre, Plato, Descartes, and Mill make this text a good way to get a feel not only for the questions philosophers face, but the enormously varied styles with which they have approached and written about them.