Gordon Strong is a damn good homebrewer, and he has the awards to prove it. I will not belittle him in that respect. We all want to be that good, or consistent, or competitively successful. It is an admirable achievement winning the Ninkasi award, let alone doing it three times. I will not detract from his accomplishments. His credentials are impeccable in that area.
However, if you have ever met Gordon Strong or had a beer judged by him, you will understand what I am about to say. His book is written exacly like he writes up a BJCP scoresheet. Lots of "I LOVE ME AND I AM THE BEST JUDGE AND HOMEBREWER EVER AND YOU ARE NOT" language with not a lot of useful information to be had about improving your beer. So, if you get his book and if you can get by the man's ego, filter out everything he's said he's done, and get to the brass tacks, nuts and bolts of what he is saying, you will find that the 20-30 pages left of his book a great tool. If you can't, then you will find his book 300+ pages difficult to understand, confusing, contradictory, and counter intuitive. Is it worth the money, that's your call.
Some day, when you try to have a conversation with the two of them (Gordon and Gordon's EGO), you will quickly find out exactly how much more he knows about the subject of homebrewing and judging than you, Charlie P, Greg N, Michael J, Stan H, Jamail Z, all other BJCP judges combined, etc. and if you don't, not to worry, it just means that he has not got around to telling you in the first 5-10 seconds but he will tell you. Just how big of an ego you ask? Well, I'll have to bring attention to the fact that he is the head of the BJCP. He wrote the qualifications for GM V certification in such a way that he and only he could be rated as GM V with all others ranked below him. He loves to call peoples' attention to that little tidbit of information to show how great a BJCP judge he is. You know, the FACT that HE is the only GM V rated judge is one of the first things he wrote in his book. Now if that isn't an ego out of control, I don't know what is.
Kev
BTW, Gordon Strong is the Gilderoy Lockhart of Homebrewing! (A Harry Potter reference for those who don't know)