The third edition of this text has extended the broad approach that focuses on production rather than engineering. The text has been updated throughout and there is new material on digital recording and strategies in designing sound.
I recommend this book to all my students in my audio production classes. Very methodical and inclusive of the science of sound and the reasons why, say, a microphone does what it does and why different ones do different things. To boot, my father-in-law, a radio producer, recordist, musician and educator extraordinaire, studied with Alten at Syracuse. So I feel like a descendent from his tree, almost (even if I married in).
Really comprehensive; and a great resource for beginner and lifetime students of audio.
I kind of agree with what my Audio professor and mentor thought:
"The problem with this book is that they've got a 'textbook' person to write it." A certain amount of the material is overly verbose.
That being said, it's not necessarily a "bad" book. I wouldn't write it off entirely.
I'd recommend reading some of the books and watching some of the videos by Tom Lubin! He's still the industry standard and he'll give you some straight up knowledge on microphone techniques, audio engineering, and recording!