Reader's review:
I was first introduced to this book as a grad student in the early 80s and I still use it to teach my graduate soil mechanics course today. It is as comprehensive as any soil mechanics text out there. Their treatment of shear strength is magnificent and worth the price of the book alone. There is a tremendous amount of information crammed into this book, but it remains very readable throughout.
Some of the other reviews miss the essential point that Holtz and Kovacs is a pure theoretical soil mechanics text, not an applied soils text. You won't get much use out of it on the PE exam, but I guarantee it will help you to better understand soil behavior.