I was impressed by the vibrant photos and informative commentary and bought this Insight Guide before my second visit to Beijing.
I realized soon afterwards that while this book makes for captivating reading, it's really not that useful for planning activities and day-to-day getting about. There are no Chinese characters given for most place names and the romanization of names and addresses isn't pinyin, so you can't be sure how words are pronounced. This is a great book for background reading and vivid photographs, but you can't get by on this book alone once you're actually on your trip.