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\title{Another Book Review} 
{\sl \TeX\ for the Impatient}. Paul W Abrahams with Karl Berry \& Kathryn A
Hargreaves. Published by Addison Wesley, Reading, Mass.,
1990. ISBN 0-201-51375-7. \smallskip
\noindent
Let's start with the easy bit: this is not a teaching
text for the impatient. It is for those who find that
locating something  in the \TB\ can be quite a lengthy
process. So it is a sort of \TB\ companion. Something to
sit alongside `the book', but no wise to replace it.
There will be those who will use it instead of `the
book'. It isn't nearly as amusing. So those who don't
enjoy \DeK's wit may relax a little with this volume. It
deliberately  restricts itself to {\tt plain}, and offers
no solace or comfort to \AmSTeX\ or \LaTeX\ users.

It is a sort of overgrown glossary, where \TeX\ concepts
and commands are described and illustrated. In general
their explanations are straightforward, and they are
prepared to extend their descriptions to cover less
obvious \TeX\ behaviour (for example, see the discussion
on category codes). There is a useful chapter  on `Tips
and Techniques' which, among other things discusses ways
of correcting `bad' page breaks, line breaks, and so on. I
was slightly surprised that there seem to be no criteria
proposed to describe what might be a `bad' break, or even
more important, what comprised a good one. The
typographic content of this book is low. No advice is
given to dissuade the novice from those dreadful values
of |\hsize| with 10 point fonts -- perhaps the most
fundamental reason that \TeX\ often acquires a bad
typographic reputation.

There is  a `Compendium of Useful Macros' which are
indeed useful. But why are they there? I appreciate that
they serve a similar role to the {\tt manmac} macros, but
they seem odd in a reference book. I wouldn't use the one
they give for the \LaTeX\ logo. Besides anything else, they
omit the backslash before the {\tt TeX}. And curiouser and
curiouser, instead of using |\TeX| in the body of the
\BibTeX\ macro, they expand it to its kerns and boxes. But
this is nit picking. They provide a set of commands to
ease cross referencing -- one of the most significant
omissions of {\tt plain} \TeX. They also give some macros
for table construction: since |\halign| is so easy to use,
I can't see the point myself, but\dots\

So far, I've actually found this book useful, although I'm
not yet familiar enough with their division of commands
into various sections. I agree that it is difficult to
classify the whole range of \TeX\ commands, and any such
classification must be imperfect. But by including a
`Capsule summary of Commands', as well as an adequate
index (with only two types of entry, unlike the \TB's more
confusing three), they cover most options, and I can
generally find something useful and appropriate. 

This is a reference book, not a book to be read cover to
cover, recursively. That rather brings into question the
illustrations: why are they there? Tenniel's illustrations
to {\sl Alice}, on which these are based, are among my
favourites. It is clearly appropriate to associate \TeX\
and {\sl Alice}. There are so many parallels. But why
redraw them at all? I would have been inclined to use
the originals, even allowing for the lack of continuity of
using the impatient (white) rabbit as a theme.

Do note that there is an unfortunate sequence of
misprints, where a number of chapters have the `true'
characters |{|, |}| and |_| transposed to other
characters, but only in some headings. This is not as
disasterous as it  at first sounds. If you are using this
book for reference, you will hardly notice, after the
first few seconds of puzzlement. Karl Berry assures me
this has been corrected for a subsequent
printing. A useful addition to the \TeX\
library, although apparently ignorant of
contributions outside the canonical trio of
Knuth, Lamport and Spivak.\author{Malcolm Clark}