The problems of physics by A J Leggett, OUP. Paperback ISBN 9780199211241, £19.99.
Oxford University Press is now re-issuing some of its most-celebrated classics in the series Oxford Classic Texts. In The problems of physics, first published in 1987, Anthony Leggett presents an overview of the frontiers of physics at the time, aimed at the general reader. This includes chapters on cosmology and high-energy physics and also on condensed-matter physics, which is where he writes briefly on superfluidity, the subject of his Nobel prize in 2003. In high-energy physics, he covers the Higgs mechanism and provides, according to a reviewer, "one of the clearest [descriptions] I have come across". Unfortunately, the book is published exactly as it was in 1987, with no attempt to say what has changed in the past 20 years.