Hard going but it was worth it! I've become more interested in his later writing, meanwhile, which helps to shed more light on some of the obscurities in this work. ( )

Easy reading. ( )

Famous for being hard to understand, most of the challenge came from the fact that Heidegger liked to play Lewis Carroll and invent words and turns of phrase. A lot of them don't translate well into English from German, so the translators had to go and put in numerous footnotes that explain what it is he is talking about.

Since the problem of Being is very elemental it felt like he was doing a lot of Eastern Zen Buddhism stuff. Before you can appreciate the spoon, you must realize its essential "spooniness." It also felt like someone trying to rigorously prove an addition problem in arithmetic. First, you need Peano Axioms and then you have to understand Set Theory and all of this preliminary preparation. So a great portion of this book is spent explaining what is meant by Being. It was interesting, but I lost some patience with it when it kept going to Greek or Latin and not telling me what it was saying. It didn't even have footnotes to explain the Greek. It was in the index of the book telling you where it was from, but I have not read Heraclitus or the other items mentioned.

Don't get me wrong, I know that it is monumental and historical, but I just can't enjoy the book when I constantly need to refer to the previous pages or a dictionary. At least Heidegger uses the word "Dasein" so much that I remembered it. Perhaps I will come back to this one. ( )

I participated in a seminar on Being and Time in the heady spring of 1993. Any review of such has been neglected. A few crucial friends have since passed and the beloved moderator of such has been resituated. Herr H situates an opposition between the authentic being/existence and that of the Herd (Das Man). I had a wonderful ride, one which was doubtlessly larded by my age but also by this Incandescence of Dasein. It remains, almost 20 years later, so tough to bespoil that material. ( )

Being and Time was Heidegger’s magnum opus. This was one of the most challenging books that I’ve ever come across, prolly because Heidegger's own use of German words and his coining of new terms and phrases were difficult for both German- and English-speaking readers (albeit excellent work in translation)
I don’t think this should be your first Heidegger book, you should be familiar with his writing before picking this one, because there’re so many new items of specialist Heideggerian terms introduced here, you’ll find it hard to keep up.
The book is part 1 of a 2 part work. Sadly, the part 2 never appeared/published (some says it exist somewhere)

It is frequently asserted that Heidegger (and in particular this book) is almost completely impossible to understand. This may well be true for those readers that attempt to 'dip in' to his works; or who speed read. There are no 'quick insights' to be gained from Heidegger. This requires substantial patience and concentration to read. You must be extraordinarily careful with Heidegger's definitions, as he invents much of his own terminology and uses familiar terms in unusual ways. Beyond that, the style of the book is extraordinarily dense.

I know this is sounding more and more like a warning than a review. Honestly I find it hard to review this, there are many good reviews here, and many great works done outside on this book that I recommend everyone to read for better understanding of this phenomenal masterpiece.
Someone here said it very well, that it was like losing my philosophical virginity. ( )