I approach the subject from a mathematical direction having been greatly interested in the fact that historically speaking, string theory has been evolving backwards and still searching for its appropriate geometry. While only a few of the prominant names in the area have undertaken the task of writing a comprehensive manuscript on string theory, the past couple of decades has seen the publication of texts by Polchinski, Kaku, Zwiebach, and several others, all with their own merits, scope, and style of presentation. The present title as far as I know is the first on the topic chiefly written by female physicists (who are inevitably better at explaining things!) and eventhough as Lee Carlson mentions in his review here, there is room for improvements in a few places, Becker &amp; Schwarz is one of the best current options for teaching a first-year graduate course and for reference. As the writers have noted in the Preface, the book assumes a background in quantum field theory, general relativity, and also familiarity with the mathematical concepts and constructs in group theory, differential geometry, and topology. The discussion starts out with the basics on perturbative string theory, moving into conformal field theory, supersymmetry, dualities, and finally to the more modern developments such as D-branes and M-theory. My favorite chapters are the ones on String Geometry (chapter 9) and Flux Compactifications (chapter 10), the latter being one of the more recent developments in the area not discussed in the earlier books. In a departure from the 1980's and 1990's trends, string theory has become progressively more accessible to nonspecialists (such as engineers), therefore the 120-or-so worked-out problems and the other 200 homework exercises which are included provide a good setting for those not taking an official course, to try their hand on solving various problems for better understanding the subject. In summary, Becker &amp; Schwarz (and its possible future editions) is destined to be one of the main treatises of string theory in the coming years.