Book review

From Volume 40, Issue 9, November 2013 | Page 730

Authors

Damien Walmsley

Department of Restorative Dentistry, University of Birmingham School of Dentistry

Articles by Damien Walmsley

Article

Prosthodontics at a glance

It must have seemed like a good idea to have all of Prosthodontics together in one book. It would need to be a good-sized book with space for all the pictures and procedures involved in Prosthodontics. The text would have to elaborate on certain points and explain important areas but also discuss controversial issues. It would be useful if it included an evidence base to the work quoted. This is in the realms of possibility but then, when you are asked to put the whole of Prosthodontics into an A4 book format of 126 pages, it is going to be a tall order.

Prosthodontics at a Glance is part of a series of books which takes a specialized dental topic and provides an overview. Its appeal is to people who do not have time to read detail but want the information quickly as a revision aide-mémoire for examinations.

My major concern is with the format of the book as a large volume of information has to be crammed into a small space. The result is a great deal of text, which contains highlighted keywords with no space for discussion. It becomes nothing more than a shopping list.

There is a great deal of good content contained in the book, but it is not easy to use it to its full potential, and it is the fault of the book format. The pictures are too small and many times I wanted to ‘click’ on them to open a larger view and then I realized that the ‘at a glance’ format is ideally suited for an interactive ebook rather than a traditional book. The problem lies not with the author but with what the publishers are trying to achieve with this particular book style. It is nothing more than a ‘quick sell’ publication.

The layout of the book is a series of 55 chapters and each chapter contains one page of pictures on the left and the text on the right. On one of the pages there were 29 pictures! The result is that the pictures are too small and ideally a magnifying glass should have been supplied to view them. On the photography pages, the example pictures for exposure are approximately 2.3 x 1.8 cm. It is not clear what the detail is in these particular pictures but at least you know one is dark and the other is light! The choice of colour background in the occlusion chapters is poor as it is not possible, even with the magnifying glass, to see the detail! If I had bought this book, I would have felt cheated by the publishers on the book format.

What gets missed? Two large and important areas not mentioned in the book are prevention and maintenance. They are not even listed in the index. There are several areas that should be downplayed, such as veneers and other areas, such as diagnosis leading to treatment planning, that need more input.

In summary, it is a ‘smash and grab’ book that gets a lot of information out as fast as possible but is not so concerned with quality. It will sell but it will also distort the learner's appreciation of what is required. If I were the author, I would look to write a book that includes more detail and discussion of the dentistry and seek out another publisher. There is a lot of potential in the subject matter but it is wasted in this format.