For a practitioner in LTE, this is one of the best books around. It is succinct, clearly written, and well organized - key qualities desired by practitioners. Topics are well structured into chapters and subheadings and one can understand each chapter independently. Not only are the lower layers (Layer 1, 2 and 3) covered well, but system aspects (eg. attach, location management, bearer/session management) are also covered in some detail. However, if one is interested in system aspects of features such as emergency services or broadcast services, one would still need to plough though the standards documents.
I refer to this book all the time and often carry it with me in my backpack. The one negative thing about the black and white version is that the figures do not come alive. Since the second edition is out now, I have decided to plunk down the extra dough and get the color version of the second edition! The book in the backpack will, I believe, still continue to be this compact first edition.