At the time, this was a great introduction to the game, it's characters, and the whole original WoW universe. Now with two expansions and numerous patches, I rely on wowwiki.com, thottbot.com, and other online sources for game play.
This was helpful when I first started playing the game. It gives you enough information to navigate your way through all the little things an experienced player takes for granted, such as how to purchase items from vendors, how to use the auction house, hearthstones, etc. It also provides a brief overview of the lore, the different races, classes and abilities. Lots of information, but very basic. If you've been playing for a while, you'll probably have little use for this guide.
This book helped be get introduced to World of Warcraft back in 2004 and I still play WoW to this day and I love it...Hence I have fond memories of this book...Things have evolved so much sice the days of Vanilla WoW!