The first thing I noticed were the colours – a puce pink (said the male brain (n = 8), lilac said the female brain (n = 4)) and a shade of blue I haven’t seen since the original Miami Vice series of the 1980s. Still, I am the last to judge a book by its colour.¹ As always, the Oxford Handbook Series has come up with another gem in its pocket series for that relic that is the white coat now displayed next to Kylie Minogue’s white hot-pants at the V&A. I am not sure how many there are, but I suspect the generalist is gradually disappearing under the weight of increasing numbers of speciality handbooks.

The authors have produced an extremely clear, …