Review of Annamarie Schimmel's book Islam: An Introduction

I finished reading Annamarie Schimmel's book Islam: An Introduction. It was OK. It read a little dull and the author was understandably sympathatic with certain tendencies within Islam, but it was a worthwhile read anyway. The book is short, that is an advantage. It makes you able to read it. Unfortunately it leaves no room for a quality narrative that allows you to put all the information in to some context. There is information on a whole host of topics, but little synthesis with other world events or how the events (polotical, social, economic, mysitcal, etc) relate to each other. It seems like each chapter would serve as a useful springboard for the investigation of any particular topic about Islam tha might interest you. It also seems like a good course text that would allow a teacher to use each chapter as a basis for a lecture in to that partictular aspect on Islam. Overall I would recommend the book, though I would not go in expecting a "good read", but rather a bunch of facts that make for a good starting point.