Edited by Kaushansky K et al

9^th Edition Published 2015

ISBN: 9780071833004

Price £207.19

http://www.mheducation.co.uk/williams-hematology

I should state from the beginning that I reviewed the e book and not the print book and more about the technology later. Now in its 9^th edition, this is a hugely detailed review of the topic and it certainly seems to provide wholesome coverage. It is a detailed book and probably more aimed at the clinical haematologist rather than a general physician or GP but it still has a lot of pertinent material which will satisfy a lot of clinical queries. It is the kind of textbook which would feel at home in medical library.

To the book’s great credit, the subject matter is easy to read and the text understandable as often, within the depths of haematology some aspects can be difficult to understand. You can read around a subject in great depth and develop a good understanding of a specific topic, thanks to this book. Yet there is also an excellent summary of the chapter material at the beginning of all the chapters I looked at, and I assume it is the same in every chapter.

The book was first published in 1972 and is now in a mature 9^th edition which has just recently been published. Hence it has had time to evolve and keep to up to date in a fast moving discipline. Looking at the table contents, it seems to cover a lot of territory and I am sure this book would answer most clinical haematological problems. It is certainly easy and simple to dip in to any section of the book and read around the topic. It comes across as a scholarly yet accessible work which provides an overall view of haematology.

As I said earlier, I reviewed the e-edition of this book and it certainly was an interesting experience. On the PC, the book was viewed on Adobe digital edition software and was a good recreation of a book on a PC. Of course there are good search functions and it was easy to jump around the book though scrolling was a bit slow but that could have been my PC. It is also possible to transfer this ebook onto an iPhone using the Bluefire app and this was very useful though the search function was a bit slow on the iPhone 6. The set up on both the PC and iPhone was not difficult and relatively painless.

All in all this is an excellent book (I have quoted the cost of the print edition book at the beginning not the electronic edition which I have reviewed) which may be a bit pricey. However if haematology is your discipline then you may wish to own a copy. Especially when an updated edition is recently released.

Dr Harry Brown

May 2016