Much of Proverbs is attributed to King Solomon. There are a couple of other authors mentioned -- Agur, son of Jakeh and King Lemuel, whoever they were.
Proverbs breaks down into several major sections. After the prologue, chapters 1 through 9 seem to be an address to a young person about getting wisdom and preferring wisdom (which is equated to godliness) to the enticements of the world -- especially the enticements of wicked women. This section is poetic and image-laden. Interesting to read and surprisingly relevant for today. I think it goes without saying that this is timeless, good advice for young and old alike.
The last section is the "Wife of Great Value." I knew a dear lady and great saint once who told her friends to not, by any means, read the passage at her funeral because she was so far from measuring up. (I'm pretty sure that was not the case.) I bet most of us women who run a household read Chapter 31 and compare ourselves with this ideal woman.
A challenge with Proverbs is how to study it. Although the "big chunks" read well and hold together, working through the many chapters of short aphorisms sometimes feels like sitting down with a box of chocolates. At first, you relish each one. But after about ten, they start to taste alike and you get satiated.
Some people like to study Proverbs by reading a chapter each day in the month (31 chapters, get it?). That's not a bad plan, but it breaks up some of the large units that should be read all at once.
The only advice I'd give is to read it over lots of times, marking the passages that strike your fancy. When you get to a passage you've marked before, it will feel like an old friend. And each time you read it, you'll find some new truth you never noticed before.
It is worth noting that Proverbs is part of what they call "Wisdom Literature." It includes very astute observations of the way the world works -- both in 900 B.C. and today. Some of it seems kind of cynical, yet all in all, it has the message that the wicked receive their just punishment and the righteous receive their just rewards, usually in this life.
It's because of this kind of philosophy that books like Job, Ecclesiastes, and some of the Psalms are so wonderful. They take up the complaint of people who find that the world does not always work that way: the wicked prosper and the righteous suffer without meaning.
As faithful believers, we must learn to embrace both philosophies and trust that God is not "self-contradictory," but rather that His scope of justice is simply more than we can comprehend.
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