Smol'yakov and Tkachenko's book is a very thorough and detailed survey of the response of hot wires and related trans ducers to a fluctuating flow field. Now that the electronic equipment needed for hot-wire anemometry is so easy to make or cheap to buy, transducer response is the most critical part of the subject - except for the fragility of the sensing element, for which textbooks are no remedy We hope that this book will be useful to all students and research workers concerned with the theory or practice of these devices or the interpretation of results. Peter Bradshaw Imperial College...