There are a ton of these types of "learn the guitar in four minutes and play like Jimmy Page" books out there. With the success of the Guitar Hero video game, everyone wants to be - and believes he/she is - the next guitar god. Instant musician. In truth, while Guitar Hero may make people more aware of past guitar greats and their music, the game itself is counterintuitive to the way the instrument is actually played (but that's another story).

Hence, the proliferation of these types of fast-food guitar books. Edwards' book passes along information about basic scales and chords and cites modern bands like Metallica, Van Halen, and AC/DC as examples of chord progressions and riffs.

The book claims to have you playing electric guitar in a month-and-a-half. That's highly unlikely. In six weeks, you'd probably find the tips of your fingers cut and maybe bleeding a little bit from the guitar strings and the frustration levels of having to finger more complex barre chords would probably drive you insane. But if you practiced six hours a day for six weeks, you could potentially strum some simple chord patterns and jam with a buddy.

Everybody wants the quick fix - fast food, speed reading, learn a new language in four days - but some things just take time. This isn't a bad book; it's just not a particularly honest one. It does come with an instructional CD.