Quick Take
- Narration: Phil Martin narrates his own material, ensuring every acronym and security term is pronounced correctly and explained with the confidence of someone who has used this vocabulary daily for years, a decisive advantage over third-party narration for certification content.
- Themes: CISSP exam preparation, security domain breadth, deliberate coverage without filler
- Mood: Dense but navigable, built for revisits
- Verdict: An honest, no-inflation exam companion that works best as a second or third pass through the CISSP CBK rather than a first introduction.
Most CISSP prep resources come in one of two flavors: the brick-sized comprehensive tome designed to justify its cover price by volume alone, or the stripped-down summary guide that promises to get you certified in a weekend and delivers neither the depth nor the confidence. Phil Martin’s Simple CISSP is an explicit rejection of the first category, and that positioning choice is worth taking seriously.
I’ll acknowledge upfront that the 2015 Common Body of Knowledge version this covers predates the most recent ISC2 CBK revision, and anyone preparing for a current exam should verify that the domains and weighting align with what they’ll encounter. But Martin’s structural choices and the underlying clarity of his explanations make this worth examining even with that caveat, because how you review security concepts matters as much as which edition you’re reviewing from.
The Deliberate Narrowness as a Feature
Martin is transparent about what he’s built: he describes it as intentionally brief, cutting fluff rather than depth. One reviewer with real field experience put it precisely, “60% depth with 90% breadth.” That ratio captures something important about how certification exams actually work. The CISSP doesn’t reward deep expertise in a single domain at the expense of others. It rewards consistent competency across all eight domains. A study resource that covers everything at the same depth as the longest resources but does so in half the time is genuinely useful, not a shortcut.
The breadth-over-depth approach means you won’t find the kind of extended case-study analysis that makes a concept truly stick. What you will find is that acronyms, and CISSP is an acronym-dense certification, are handled correctly and consistently. Martin narrates his own book, which for a security certification resource is close to essential. The wrong pronunciation of a security term can create genuine confusion when that term appears in a different form on an exam or in documentation. A reviewer named cssserious describes feeling like they’re “actually living inside the situation” rather than cramming something external, which suggests Martin’s voice-of-the-practitioner approach does real pedagogical work.
What Self-Narration Does for Technical Clarity
Sixteen hours and fifty-five minutes is a substantial listening commitment, and the fact that Martin narrates means the pacing is driven by someone who knows exactly how much time each concept needs. He’s not guessing which passages require a slower read or which terms need phonetic care, he wrote the material and works in the field it describes. The reviewer who noted that this is “a great way to augment the CISSP library” by listening through content “full of lists, different acronyms and definitions” identifies the format’s genuine advantage: for content that’s inherently list-heavy, audio can help it stick in a way that reading the same list repeatedly doesn’t.
Martin himself notes in the synopsis a practical limitation: on mobile devices, chapter names may not display descriptively, which means navigation for revisiting specific domains requires scanning rather than direct selection. He addresses this by reading chapter titles aloud at the start of each section, which works in practice but is less elegant than a well-indexed digital resource.
Honest Limitations Worth Naming
The 2015 CBK alignment is the largest caveat, and it’s not a small one. ISC2 updated the CBK in 2021 and has continued adjusting domain weighting and emerging topic coverage, cloud security, privacy, and DevSecOps have all received increased emphasis that predates the 2015 framework. Listeners should treat Simple CISSP as a foundational review resource and cross-reference current domain outlines before exam day. The 4.4 rating across forty-one reviews suggests it works well for the audience that found it, but that audience was likely using it as one resource among several rather than as a complete standalone guide.
Who should listen: CISSP candidates in their second or third review pass who want audio reinforcement of domain concepts, security professionals refreshing foundational knowledge, and anyone who benefits from hearing terminology rather than reading it. Who should skip: First-time CISSP candidates who need the comprehensive coverage of current domain content, or anyone who needs updated material reflecting the 2021 CBK or later revisions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Simple CISSP current for the latest ISC2 CBK, or is it outdated?
The synopsis states this is based on the 2015 CISSP Common Body of Knowledge. ISC2 revised the CBK in 2021 and has continued updating domain content. Listeners preparing for a current CISSP exam should verify domain alignment with the current exam outline. This book is better used as a foundational review resource than a primary exam prep tool for current candidates.
Why does the author narrate his own certification prep book, and does it help?
Martin explicitly states in the synopsis that he narrated the book to ensure correct pronunciation and description of all security terminology. This is a meaningful advantage for certification content. Mispronounced or mis-emphasized technical terms in audio study materials can embed incorrect recall. Martin’s field experience means the narration reflects how practitioners actually use the vocabulary.
How should Simple CISSP be used alongside other CISSP study resources?
Multiple reviewers position it as a complement rather than a replacement. The ‘augment the CISSP library’ framing suggests it works best as a review layer after working through a comprehensive resource like the Sybex guide or the official CBK documentation. Its audio format makes it useful for commute listening and passive reinforcement rather than initial concept acquisition.
The chapter navigation limitation Martin mentions, is it a real problem in practice?
He acknowledges that chapter names may not display descriptively on mobile devices, which makes it harder to jump to a specific domain during study sessions. His solution, reading chapter titles aloud at the start of each section, works for linear listening. For targeted domain review, listeners may need to note timestamps manually during their first pass through the material.
