Maclaughlan M, ed. Librario. (Pp 122; £7.99). ISBN 0 954296087

A small book, this, but packed as full of meat as an egg. There is not a line wasted in MacLachlan's account of how patients face up to, go through, and recover from the experience of cardiac surgery.

What patients? A statistician might complain that there is no evidence in these pages of studies made by experts of carefully balanced statistically valid groups (including control groups, of course), no elegantly designed charts or tables—nothing, in fact, to add to any academic's collection of important texts. Just a lot of chat, really. Which is what makes this book so important. It is chat. It is an account of patients talking to each other, either …