R. Pascetta, D. Dainese. Quintessence price £175.00; pp 416 ISBN

9788874921782

The definition of an 'atlas' is a book of illustrations or diagrams on a specific subject. This book most definitely lives up to its title as a great illustrated guide of fixed prostheses options for dental technicians and dentists. Its content includes a wide range of elementary topics including clinical-laboratory communication and single tooth restorations through to the more advanced CAD-CAM, implant-supported restorations and full-mouth rehabilitation techniques. Each topic is discussed through the aid of patient cases that the authors have completed personally and chapters are helpfully split into sub-categories with interesting historical facts on the subjects. Every page is decorated with high quality photographs and illustrations to aid the reader in visualising the processes described.

The text is written from the viewpoint of the authors - both are laboratory technicians who specialise in ceramics – making the book more relevant to dental technicians. As a dentist myself, I found the book very pleasing to read, if somewhat too detailed in sections. It is weighted heavily on laboratory processes rather than clinical approaches and therefore better suits the dental technician or dentists with more advanced restorative knowledge. However, it does provide helpful hints to improve the clinician-technician-patient relationship and allows the dentist to understand the steps being undertaken in the lab; teaching of which I found can be lacking at undergraduate and postgraduate level.

Overall I think this book will engage readers as the authors' passion and attention to detail is inspiring and makes the reader want to strive for similar. I found the photography beautiful and the most impressive part of the book. My only criticisms are the title is slightly misleading as the text only covers fixed partial denture treatment rather than all forms of rehabilitation techniques and the photographs are not labeled, which would be valuable to the reader.

Indeed this would be a fantastic aid to the laboratory as not only a refresher but for technicians to advance their knowledge into more specialist areas of prosthetics. I believe the key audience for this book is the dental technician, but it would also be useful for restorative specialists and the keen GDP.