The Library Shelf: Space Flight and Missiles

Stranded on a desert island or in a hospital bed with only one book to read, the victim can do far worse than have a good dictionary on his favourite subject. You flick over the pages to look up something you want to know, your eye catches an adjacent entry which intrigues you and you are off on the fascinating game of being referred from one entry to another in your pursuit of knowledge. If the game is not to lead to frustration and anger the book must play fair by you, it must leave you with the feeling that you have really learnt something for your efforts, even if occasionally this is that the subject is too abstruse for concise treatment and you are fobbed off with a list of references.