D.W. Crisfield

For the most part, I loved this book. It was clear, it taught me a lot in not very much time, and the presentation was very successful. But there were a few things that held it back from being a 5 star book I'd recommend without hesitation:

1. There are some errors in the book. They may seem like minor errors, but there are times when the text and the cards shown don't exactly match up, and for a topic as precise as bridge bidding, this was occasionally really important. This book simply needed better editing.
2. The formatting was often great, but the text at the top of the pages was a bit confusing. At times when there were many examples, you were encouraged to read a bit of the continuous text, then jump to the example, then back to the top, etc. I would have preferred if the top text had the overview and the logic behind it, and the examples below had more text and were more self-contained.
3. At first the formatting felt fluid and logical, but as the book progressed it became too rigid. For instance, by the time they get to the "exercises," I believe it would have made sense to have them be a bit more detailed, 1 exercise per page. That way one side of the page could explain the exercise and show the relevant hand or hands, and the other side of the page could give a detailed explanation of the solution. Instead, the author tried to structure this section of the book in the same way as the first 80%, and it made the exercises hard to do or care about (even though I liked the idea of having them!)

However, the content was generally so well presented and the book was so clear that I think it is worth reading in spite of these flaws. I certainly hope Crisfeld writes more books that don't have the issues above - I would read all of them.… (mehr)