not the good at all if you start in competitions

This books is simply weak. There are informal and formal books and sources you can start play in these contests. TopCoder is certainly the best one, ACM-ICPC is the most official one, and acm.uva.es, involving one of the authors of this book, is also an excellent source. But this book is simple useless.

Other Reviews

• Problems are good, but requires a little more in terms of solutions
• not the good at all if you start in competitions
• Recreational and good for modern job interviews
• disaster
• Not useful