As the title suggests, Sestoft and Hansen provide a concise description of the C# programming language up to version 4.0, along with some aspects of asynchronous programming that will appear in a future release. The book has 34 chapters, supplemented by 256 short programs illustrating the topics covered. These ready-to-run programs are available for download at http://www.itu.dk/people/sestoft/csharpprecisely/.

With the exception of chapters 12 and 13 that cover, respectively, the legal expressions and statements, chapters 1 through 20 focus on the data types of the C# language, ranging from simple types (int, bool, char, and byte) to more complex types (string, array, and struct). The discussion on the class type also includes associated concepts such as field, property, constructor, operator, method, and access modifiers; inheritance; and operator overloading. Chapters 21 through 23 discuss topics related to concurrent programming such as threads, tasks, and asynchronous methods. The remaining chapters deal with a number of concepts, the most significant being input/output, generic types, the Linq framework, and debugging.

Although the chapters are well written and illustrated using code snippets, the brevity and terse manner in which the topics are covered will make reading the book a bit challenging for novice programmers. Educators will not find this book suitable as a text since there are no end-of-chapter exercises. More advanced programmers, however, will appreciate the conciseness and completeness of the book, which also make it an excellent reference.