Unix - The Book is a marvellous introductory manual to the basic principles and techniques used to make Unix do what you want. It covers some pretty deep ground as well, and in itself that is sufficient reason for buying this book.

The detailed explanation of the most-used features of the common Unix interface is excellent for reference. And the less-used (and possible more useful) stuff is far easier to read than the regular manuals.

But the book really takes off when the most complex features of the Unix system are revealed. The authors give due warning at the beginning of chapter eight, commenting: "Here's where you grow up; from now on the gloves are off." They mean it.

This section isn't for beginners. Subjects covered include logging in a new user, controlling and activating timed processes, conditional compilation and even shutting Unix down and restarting it.

To the user of today's micro, who stops his machine simply to halt a program, this may sound an odd thing to get excited about; after all, only mainframes have problems like that, don't they?

But the machine of tomorrow (meaning about ten minutes from now) will be a very different beast. For example, it may not have an on/off switch ... it'll stay on all the time. Make it as powerful as suggested, and you have to think about such things.

Mike Banahan and Andy Rutter's new book gives a highly readable guide to the methods used by real programmers solving real problems with Unix, and gives the micro owner of today a foretaste of the ideas that will soon be here.

Not only is Unix - The Book useful, it's fun to read too, and this is a rare thing in a technical book of any kind. For example, did you know that Unix consists of ordnance and depends on suicidal children - victims of parental neglect - plumbing and forks?

In Unix, 'children' are a process created by 'parents' and they (the children) can call, use or be 'pipes' or 'filters'. The whole process is controlled by 'forks'.

I'm sure you'll find this all perfectly clear, but if not, it will give you the opportunity to look it up in a book that is well worth reading.