[5] The "pearls" of the title include theorems, proofs, problems, and examples in graph theory.

[3] Despite its subtitle "A comprehensive introduction", the book is short and its selection of topics reflects author Ringel's personal interests.

[2][5] The book is written as a lower-level undergraduate textbook and recommends that students using it have previously taken a course in discrete mathematics.

[2] Although several reviewers complained about the book's spotty or missing coverage of important topics,[1][4][5] reviewer Joan Hutchinson praised its choice of topics as "refreshingly different" and noted that, among many previous texts on graph theory, none had as much depth of coverage of topological graph theory.

[1] Hutchinson praises it as providing "a splendid, enticingly elementary yet comprehensive introduction to topological graph theory".