The book provides an excellent introduction to many areas of modern computer vision and machine learning. Although the book is primarily concerned with high-level vision problems such as face recognition, it provides a valuable compendium on a variety of algorithms and statistical techniques which have come into vogue over the last few years.
Complex topics such as statistical learning theory are explained very clearly and concisely with just the right amount of mathematics. The mathematical descriptions are of a kind familiar to anyone with a good science or engineering background, i.e. they are designed to provide insight and formal structure rather than endless proofs of pointless theorems.
I particularly liked the way in which the authors clearly formulate and motivate the key problems before presenting and comparing different solutions. Although somewhat expensive, this book is an excellent introduction and reference for anyone seriously interested in the subject.