I'm including these two books together as they follow from one to the other. I would say they are both reasonable books for novice to intermediate players and when I purchased them I read them a lot and so found them useful at the time, having recently decided to have another look back at them did not find anything I had forgot and to be frank that was not better covered elsewhere. Overall if you're an advanced player and don't have them you don't need them, if you're a beginner/intermediate player and you want all the help you can get well I would get Lee Jones book first but if you wanted to get a few books I have no problem in recommending these either. Not so much a crticism but maybe a matter of personal taste and I guess the fact that I am a European but when I buy a poker book some background on the author and some amusing asides are all fine but can't really relate to the relevance of philosophying on Poker and the American dream, don't want to be too harsh as this only appears briefly and I'm sure American readers might dig it.

Anyway getting back to the crux of it to reiterate a key point what you read in these type of books and the succesful plays you make at the lower level will not be enough at the higher level.

Overall verdict is two good books that would be welcome but not vital to the poker players library.