Book review

Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System, 11th edition. Sheila Sherlock and James Dooley. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing

For 47 years and now 11 editions, Diseases of the Liverand Biliary System has been unrivalled as the bestsingle-volume ‘single author’ (James Dooley joinedSheila Sherlock in writing the last three editions)textbook of liver disease. Very sadly, this is the lastedition to be written by Dame Sheila, who died inDecember 2001. Nonetheless, one can think of noother leading textbook to have been written by thesame author and kept very up-to-date and in demandfor almost 50 years.

Two questions arise for potential readers (and buyers)of this latest edition. Firstly, is it as good as ever?Secondly, does it now fall between the two stools ofshort student-type text on the one hand and exhaustivemultivolume textbook on the other? The answer to thefirst question is, emphatically yes, and to the secondquestion, certainly not.

Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System isextremely well referenced (although some of the olderreferences are perhaps included ‘for Auld Lang Syne’)and mostly incredibly up-to-date. In almost all areas,the incisive writing means that Sherlock and Dooleyachieve in a page what many others would need 5 pagesto convey. The figures and tables are almost all excel-lent and beautifully produced.

While Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System maynot seem to be a ‘must-have’ on the shelves of inves-tigators in GI motility (the readers of this journal) thisbook is so good at summarizing ‘all you ever wantedor needed to know about hepatobiliary disease’ that Irecommend it to all departmental libraries. It is stillmuch, much easier to take a great book from a shelfand read two pages (noting key references) than totrawl through internet search engines, reference lists,etc. for the same information put much less succinctly.

Diseases of the Liver and Biliary System shows oneof the great Rolls-Royce minds of clinical medicinestill working at full throttle to synthesize and simplifycomplex ideas and new developments in clinical sci-ences so that readers can understand them and assesstheir importance. The book may be didactic in placesbut it is very, very seldom wrong.

Professor Oliver JamesSchool of Clinical Medical SciencesUniversity of Newcastle upon Tyne

Framlington PlaceNewcastle upon Tyne, NE2 4HH

UK

Neurogastroenterol. Mot. (2002) 14, 215–215

� 2002 Blackwell Science Ltd 215