The Lyons Press specialises in fly‐fishing books, but they also offer titles on nature, camping, adventure, gardening, woodworking, travel, the sea, history, food and wine, art, hunting, and general sport, including this title, a complete reference to the worlds of billiards, pool, snooker and other cue sports. It was first published in 1993, under the title The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Billiards, and this edition first saw the light of day in 2000 in hardback covers (ISBN 1‐558521‐797‐5; £30; $40). Mike Shamos, or Michael Ian Shamos as he is known on the book’s copyright statement, has published several other books on billiards and related games. He is also the curator of the renowned Billiard Archive, which claims to be the single largest library and memorabilia collection in the world.
With more than 2,000 entries and 200 illustrations, this is a most comprehensive book, but it is important to note that it does not provide biographical information on players of the many variations of cue sports which are detailed. There are several appendices, including one on billiard numbers ranging up to 63,000,000,000,000,000, which is the number of possible three‐ball billiard positions as computed by a professor in Illinois when he had a bit of time on his hands. A more useful appendix may be the bibliography that lists some 350 works on the subject.
