SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL BOOKS AND SERIALS IN PRINT

1987. R.R. Bowker Co., New York,
1987. 3 vols., 4,203 pp. $159.94.

I started this assignment with misgivings and uncertainty; how does one review an endless list of book titles? But I quickly became fascinated and couldn’t put the volumes down. I could hardly pick them up either they weigh in at some 5 pounds each.

Books are listed by author, title and subject. The diversity is intriguing. The subject index goes from “Abacus” to “Zygnemaceae.” In between are three books under “Dogs-Food” (including “The Good Dog’s Cook Book”), 11 books under “Fibonacci Numbers,” five under “Hairdressing,” 22 under “Halley’s Comet,” 32 under “Quarks.” If you want to learn BASIC programming language you have a choice of 800 books; for PASCAL, a paltry 300. Looking at the author index I noted that Isaac Asimov has 43 non-fiction books in print.

The title...

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