Eighteen co-authors cover the 16 chapters of this topical subject in 400 reasonably interesting pages. Alas, there is but one physician and one surgeon (presumably thoracic) on the list of co-authors. The book would have been better had there been more “hands-on” clinicians on the panel. The pizza has too many anchovies and not enough cheese.

I found the introduction by Bruce Case somewhat confusing, as he speaks in the first person but does not introduce himself to the reader or provide any clear idea of the time in his life of which he is speaking. It starts off as a sort of name-dropping “Who’s who” in asbestos epidemiology in Canada and the United States, without any charm.

There is one Australian co-author, Emeritus Professor Geoffrey Berry from the School of Public Health, University of Sydney. There are one and a half pages on Australia, listed with other countries. By the end of Asbestos and its diseases, I felt that the world consisted of mostly North America and the United Kingdom.

Some of the most demanding clinical aspects of managing asbestos patients are missing. There is an undue emphasis on pathology and only half a page on lung function. The section on progression of the disease is from a pathological rather than clinical standpoint. It states that chest pain in benign asbestos pleural disease is rare, whereas I see it in over 40% of patients. It is as if the authors only see patients on a postmortem table, under a microscope, or in epidemiological studies. There is no mention of the psychosocial aspects, patients’ needs or how to support them. This is human misery at arm’s length.

While this book has many redeeming features as a useful reference book, particularly for pathologists or epidemiologists, it contains certain clinical imperfections that may perpetuate misconceptions about this group of diseases. In the hands of a defendant barrister, this may lead to mischievous ends. For the money, it is a valuable resource if taken with a pinch of salt.