Let me first tell you that I am an undergraduate in mathematics, having read a couple of courses in algebra, and one course in analysis (Rudin). I took this (for me) more advanced algebra course in rings and modules, covering what I believe is standard stuff on modules presented with functors and so on, Noetherian modules, Semisimple modules and Semisimple rings, tensorproduct, flat modules, exterior algebra. Now, we had a fine compendium but I felt I needed something with a tensy bit of exemples, you know more like what the moronic undergraduate is used to! So I bought this book by Adkins & Weintraub and was at first a bit disappointed, as you can well imagine. But after a while I discovered that it did meet my needs after a certain weening period. Especially chapter 7. Topics in module theory with a clear presentation of semisimple modules and rings served me well in supporting the rather terse compendium. As you can tell I don't have that much experience of mathematics so I won't try to judge this book in other ways than to tell you that I found it quite readably despite my poor background. There are very good examples and not just one or two. The notation was forbidding at first but after a while I learned to trust it. There are many examples and computations of normal form. E.g. for Jordan normal form.
Well I found it good fun and it was surely worth the money for me!
