The Greenberg Rapid Review—a companion to the 7th edition

This question-and-answer companion to the Handbook of Neurosurgery (by Mark S. Greenberg, 7th edition) forms an excellent study guide for those who find the voluminous information contained within the core text a challenge to digest. Organised into chapters corresponding with those in the Handbook, the information is transcribed into bite-sized chunks through the use of open-ended as well as multiplechoice questions. As such, the key points of every chapter are emphasised in an indirect but apparent manner. The format of the book is a well-thought-out one. With questions on the left of the page and corresponding answers placed on the right of the same page, the layout is readerfriendly and provides added convenience when revising. The answers are also efficiently referenced to the Handbook with the relevant page numbers. Oddly, though, in addition to the page numbers, each question and answer is also referenced to “the millimetre from the top of the page” in the Handbook of Neurosurgery (e.g. an answer may be referenced as “G7, p. 8:30 mm). Such precision in referencing, although admirable for its meticulousness, does beg the question of redundancy. There has also been an attempt to introduce mnemonics into this Companion text, but the vast majority of these are somewhat contrived and may not serve their function as an aide memoire. The strength of this book lies ultimately in its ability to condense a large amount of information into revisionfriendly and digestible text. In a specialty that suffers from a paucity of question-and-answer texts, this book is considered a welcome addition to the library of any neurosurgery resident.