Indexes Praised and Indexes Censured are extracted from Indexes Reviewed, a regular feature in The Indexer.

These extracts from reviews do not pretend to represent a complete survey of all reviews in journals and newspapers. We offer only a selection from quotations that members have sent in. Our reproduction of comments is not a stamp of approval from the Society of Indexers upon the reviewer’s assessment of an index.

Angus & Robertson: A bee in your bonnet? An astonishing compendium from the master of origins, customs and beliefs, by R. Brasch (2001, 292 pp, AUS$19.95). Rev. by Ron Cerabona, The Canberra Times, 9 June 2001.
There are no chapters or other organising principles here - the book is made for dipping into; although there is an index, it can be a little idiosyncratic. To find the right page for 'It is cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey' (not an obscene expression!), for example, the reader must look under 'It', not 'monkey', 'cold', or 'freeze', as might be expected.

Aslib: The Aslib directory of information sources in the UK, ed. by Keith W. Reynard (11th edn, 2000, £335). Rev. by David Clover, InformationWorldReview, Sept 2001.
A well cross-referenced alphabetical listing is complemented with a subject index and list of abbreviations and acronyms. It was disappointing not to see the London Imperial War Museum listed under Holocaust Studies in the subject index. Other potential omissions included the Jewish Museum, London; the Holocaust Educational Trust, London; the Oxford Centre for Hebrew and Jewish Studies; the Centre for German-Jewish Studies, University of Sussex and the Manchester Jewish Museum. [It's not clear whether this is a criticism of the index or of the directory.]

Cambridge University Press: Cambridge history of literary criticism, ed. by Walton A. Liz, Louis Menand and Lawrence Rainey (2000, 576 pp, £76). Rev. by George Lilley, Library Association Record, 103(6), June 2001.
The index is far too selective to give adequate access to what is a major volume of scholarship.

Cambridge University Press: Hegel: a biography, by Terry Pinkard (780 pp, $39.95). Rev. by Anthony Quinton, New York Review of Books, 21 June 2001.
During [Hegel's] Jena period his landlady (or possibly cleaning woman) Frau Burkhardt presented him with an illegitimate son, known as Ludwig Fischer. This put Hegel in distinguished philosophical company, alongside Descartes, Hume, Marx, and A.J. Ayer. Ludwig's story is sad. Farmed out at first, he was eventually accepted into Hegel's family, with a painfully marginal status. He naturally resented this, left home as soon as he could, and joined the Dutch army, dying of fever in the Dutch East Indies in the year of Hegel's own death. A crowning misfortune is the fact that he has no entry in Pinkard's index, although he is a notably embarrassing presence in the text.

Cambridge University Press: Secular buildings in the Crusader kingdom of Jerusalem: an archaeological gazetteer, by Denys Pringle (1997, xix + 159 pp, £45). Rev. by Peter W. Edbury, Medieval Archaeology, XLII, 1998.
My one criticism is that the index only lists place-names, and so anyone hoping to use it to find references to all the localities listed in the gazetteer belonging, say, to the Hospitallers or to the Templars will be frustrated.

Chatto & Windus: Characters of Fitzrovia, by Mike Pentelow and Marsha Rowe (262 pp, £25). Rev. by Jane Gardam, The Spectator, 1 Dec 2001.
The index of this book is tiresome, but the illustrations are wonderful… [But in what way is it tiresome?]

Donhead Publishing: The modern plasterer, by W. Verrall (facsimile edition, 2000, 512 pp, £65). Rev. by Ian Sims, Journal of Architectural Conservation, no 2, July 2000.
If I have a minor criticism of the reprint, it is the presumably unchanged use of the original index. A complete, structured and reliable index is an important requirement for such a major reference work and, while the index provided is certainly not inadequate, it does exhibit some omissions and could have been improved.

Duckworth: Beria – my father: inside Stalin's Kremlin, by Sergo Beria (320 pp, £25). Rev. by Kevin Myers, Irish Times, 25 Aug 2001.
… probably the worst book I have ever been called on to review. Such interest as it may possess is for scholars; but even this is vitiated by a perfectly deplorable index. Maybe this is the fault of the otherwise irreproachable editor, or more likely, of a publisher who was not prepared to put the necessary resources into it.

English Heritage: Raunds Furnells: the Anglo-Saxon church and churchyard, by Andy Boddington with others (1996, xiv + 133 pp, £35). Rev. by Birthe Kjølbye-Biddle, Medieval Archaeology, XLII, 1998.
Even the data about the very important 'founder' is not brought together and is not to be found in the over-elaborate and confusing index.

Faber: Grammars of creation: originating in the Gifford Lectures for 1990, by George Steiner (288 pp, £16.99). Rev. by Daniel Johnson, Daily Telegraph, 10 March 2001.
To summarise Steiner's argument is difficult, and it is not helped by his failure fully to recast the original lecture format. The chapters are anonymous, the index is inadequate, there is no concise statement of the theme and no recapitulation at the end.

Faber: Notebooks and conversations, by Sviatoslav Richter, tr. by Stewart Spencer (464 pp, £25). Rev. by David Gallagher, BBC Music Magazine, June 2001.
He is warm towards pianists he admires – his teacher Heinrich Neuhaus, for instance, or Andrey Gavrilov, or Eliso Virsaladze (whose name, incidentally, is misspelt in the index)…

Fayard/ Éditions de l'IMEC: Erik Satie: correspondance presque complète, ed. by Ornella Volta (1,234 pp, 290fr.) Rev. by Robert Orledge, Times Literary Supplement, 3 Aug 2001.
As might be expected in a book of this magnitude, there are quite a few typos, inconsistencies and minor errors, not least in the computer-generated indices [sic] and appended music examples.

House of Stratus: Lady Caroline Lamb: this infernal woman, by Susan Normington (323 pp, £18.99). Rev. by Catherine Peters, Times Literary Supplement, 22 June 2001.
Her inclusion of every fact that might be remotely relevant sometimes comes perilously close to sinking the narrative with an iceberg of research, while, surprisingly, her index is inadequate…

Jessica Kingsley Publishers: When I'm away from home, by Jean Camis (2000, £9.95). Rev. by Chris Rushton, Adoption Today, no. 95, Nov 2000.It is clearly and pleasantly presented and covers an extensive range of care issues. It is because of this that I felt the index was inadequate. I found the entries are not specific enough, which makes it a little frustrating if you wish to refer to a specific issue for quick reference.

Kluwer Academic: Encyclopedia of planetary sciences, ed. by James H. Shirley and Rhodes W. Fairbridge (2001, 990pp pbk + CD, £62.00). Rev. by Chris Kitchin, Astronomy Now, 15(12), Dec 2001.
My main criticism of the encyclopedia is of its index. This is quite inadequate, and finding topics other than those of the main entries needs detailed knowledge, and so obviates the point of using an encyclopedia. Apart from the poor index, this is an outstanding book and, at £62 for the paperback edition, extremely good value. I would highly recommend it both for personal and library purchase. ['So, does this mean that a poor index is not a deterrent to sales?' asks Paul Nash, who submitted this item.]

John Knox: God's touch, by Bruce G. Epperly (£9.99). Rev. by Anne Johnson, The Reader, 98(4), Winter 2001.
There is a subject index with highly selective entries (there is no excuse for this in these days of sophisticated word processing) and an index of names in which the only biblical one is the Apostle Paul despite the mention of scores of others.

Peter Lang: Gained in translation: language, poetry and identity in twentieth-century Ireland, by Kathleen Shields (2000, 227 pp). Rev. by Roger Little, Translation Ireland, Summer 2001.
There is something scandalous about a book with such a title which, according to its index, makes no mention of Beckett, Carson, Coffey, Devlin, Hartnett, Heaney, Kinsella, MacGreevy, Mahon e tutti quanti. Fortunately these are precisely the poets on whom, in their capacity as translators, Dr Shields concentrates her attention…. The resonances of this study go far beyond [Ireland's] shores and will reward attention. It deserved a better index.

McFarland & Co.: A history of information storage and retrieval, by Foster Stockwell (2001, vii + 200 pp, £37.95). Rev. by Jack Meadows, Library Association Record, 103(8), Aug 2001.
… we are told that 'the number of handwritten and printed books turned out by the Chinese before 1750 was greater than that for all other languages in the world combined'. An interesting claim, but where does it come from? The index does not help. Thus, though the author, hardly surprisingly, provides some discussion of both cataloguing and classification, neither term appears in the index.

New Holland Publishers: The modern cook, by Ray McVinnie (2001, NZ$39.95). Rev. by Lois Daish, New Zealand Listener, 13 Oct 2001.
A sprinkling of editing mishaps, such as a pasta soup that doesn't include any pasta and an index that has no entries under 'eggs', despite the fact there is a whole chapter of omelette recipes, is unexpected in a book from one of our leading cookbook publishers.

Olms-Weidmann: Handbuch der historischen Buchbestände (series 1-3, total of 41 vols), ed. by Bernhard Fabian (DM9,312 the set). Rev. by John L. Flood, Times Literary Supplement, 12 Oct 2001.
Were such a project initiated today [it has taken 15 years to complete], it would probably be planned from the outset as an online resource or at least as a CD-ROM. For while following up references in an individual volume using the volume index or the general name index (I, 23) is still manageable, using the four-volume general subject index (I, 24-7) can be nothing short of a nightmare, although Karen Kloth has striven heroically to make it user-friendly (it would have been preferable to be given volume and specific page number, rather than volume and section reference). While one is delighted to come across unexpected leads to follow up – Stein der Weisen (the philosopher's stone) for instance – in many cases the references are so numerous and non-specific that all but the most determined user will despair; the patience of Job is needed to work through the thirteen columns of references under Theologie and all the time in the world to digest the thirty-five pages of references under Geschichte. The fourteen columns of references to individual school histories (under Gymnasium), by contrast, are admirably arranged.

Oxford University Press: Daniel Defoe: master of fictions, by Maximillian E. Novak (756 pp, £30). Rev. by Claude Rawson, Times Literary Supplement, 17 Aug 2001.
The index, somewhat sparse for such a densely detailed and substantial book, is half-heartedly organized, and it is hard to navigate the somewhat skimpy sub-entries.

Oxford University Press: The Oxford illustrated companion to medicine, ed. by Stephen Lock, John Last and George Dunea (£39.50). Rev. by Michael le Page, New Scientist, 10 Nov 2001.
But the inclusion of longer entries in this latest edition makes it harder to find what you're looking for. And I was staggered to discover that there are no fewer than four separate indexes instead of a single comprehensive one. So I'm not sure who would find this book useful. The entries on specific conditions aren't detailed enough for professionals, nor are they intended to be a practical guide for lay people. Yet the dry textbook style and encyclopedic format means it's not the kind of book you can read for pleasure.

Pan Books: E=mc2: a biography of the world's most famous equation, by David Bodanis (2001, 330 pp, AUS$21). Rev. by Ralph Elliott, The Canberra Times, 20 Oct 2001.
David Bodanis's biography of Einstein's famous formula also offers an appendix which traces the careers of scientists mentioned in the text, as well as 65 pages of notes, 20 pages of further reading and an index which fails to include 'the great Max Planck' of the text or the quantum theory.

Phillimore: Worthing past, by Sally White (2000, 131 pp, £14.99). Rev. by Monica Maloney, Sussex Past & Present (newsletter of the Sussex Archaeological Society.
A professional index with subheadings would make it more useful as a book of reference.

Société Française de Musicologie, Le théâtre des demoiselles: tragédie et musique à Saint-Cyr à la fin du grand siècle, by Anne Piéjus (2000, FFr 430). Rev. by Deborah Kauffman, Early Music, Nov 2001.
I would quibble with the French predilection for including only an index of names, although an index by subject would, admittedly, have added to the book's already considerable length.

Tempus Publishing: Cambridge: the hidden history, by Alison Taylor (199, 159 pp, £18.99). Rev. by Robin Glasscock, Antiquaries Journal, 81, 2001.
For mention of many persons, streets and buildings one has to search the text as the index is not sufficiently detailed.