This is a book ‘that needs no introduction’ as it is so well known to us all in the UK. I well recall doing a review of what was then a purple paperback when it first appeared in 1995. I have since seen countless trainees carrying that handy sized text in the white coats that they were once allowed to wear. My research reminds me that the original, from the same three editors, listed 100 key topics in alphabetical order. That list has now grown to 123, and runs from Adenoids to Voice disorders. The multi-author input, all UK based, is a who's who of our local specialty.

This book has always been designed for dipping into, rather than reading from A to Z, and is widely acknowledged as indispensable for examination preparation (possibly for both sides of the viva table sometimes!). The idea is still to encourage further reading in the major text books, whether on operative techniques, audiology, basic sciences, image interpretation and so on, but the content really does stand well on its own.

Without access to the second edition, I unfortunately cannot tell you exactly what is new or revised, but, where references for further reading are suggested, they are well beyond the year of its publication (2000), and it looks totally different to my recollection.

What fun it is to read a chapter on eponyms in ENT. How clever to include a chapter on examinations in ENT, by Andrew Swift (I can see that being widely read). The chapter on parathyroid disease had to be by Shahed Quraishi OBE, and that on robotic surgery by Vinidh Paleri (who also did a superb chapter on literature review and statistics, another ‘you must read this’ text).

By my standards, this is a brief review, because there can be little doubt that every trainee will want their own copy, and at this price they can afford it. It has a place in any examination revision and is obviously superbly updated for this third edition. I simply cannot believe that it was as far back as 1995 when the first edition appeared.