This book really should be subtitled 'How to write a Telephone Directory program', because that's what it's all about. The basis of the book and presumably the excuse for its existence is to reach the user the fundamentals of program writing. The intended audience would appear to be those totally naive in the writing of Basic programs. A commendable task. However this book is unlikely to be of much use to the beginner.

The first chapter suffers under the awful heading of: "The machine: its concept and breeding". Breeding? Well, if that doesn't put you off, the contents will. It's not till chapter five that the subject of variables is discussed, having given the user in previous chapters, amounts of code to type in, most of which is largely unexplained.

A further inconsistency is seen in explanations of various Basic statements in chapter three, which assume an understanding of Basic concepts (Such as "What a variable is") yet these are not explained till later in the book.

Considering the book is teaching "Structured Programming", it wouldn't be unreasonable to expect some structure and planning to presentation. The book concentrates almost entirely around one central program and idea. With better format this might have worked but as a book for beginners there is little to maintain interest.

Stephen Raven has written a book which is little more than an attempt at teaching a limited set of Basic commands and sadly is a failure as a teaching aid. In the words of the author, 'familiarity breeds confidence'. I have no doubt that Mr. Raven can program but it is perhaps his familiarity and confidence in programming that has made him forget how difficult first steps in computing can be.