CARVER ON BILLS OF LADING (4th Edition). Sir Guenter Treitel, QC, DCL, FBA, Honorary Bencher of Gray’s Inn, formerly Vinerian Professor of English Law, University of Oxford, and FMB Reynolds, QC, DCL, FBA, Honorary Bencher of the Inner Temple, formerly Professor of Law, University of Oxford. Sweet & Maxwell, London (2017) lxvii and 812 pp, plus 72 pp Appendices and 38 pp Index. Hardback £395.

CARVER ON CHARTERPARTIES. General Editor Howard Bennett, Hind Professor of Commercial Law, University of Nottingham. Sweet & Maxwell, London (2017) ccxxxv and 1452 pp, plus 72 pp Index. Hardback £295.

SCRUTTON ON CHARTERPARTIES AND BILLS OF LADING (23rd Edition). Edited by Sir Bernard Eder et al. Sweet & Maxwell, London (2015) clx and 500 pp, plus 91 pp Appendices and 32 pp Index. Hardback £335.

Book reviewing, like commercial law in general and, for present purposes, carriage of goods by sea in particular, has a practical aspect. One practice is that it is not usual to review new editions of familiar books. If we know what a book is like, we are used to it, and it usually does the job, there may seem to be not much point in simply advertising a new edition. This is especially so if it is a well-respected and commonly used book, such as Scrutton on Charterparties and Bills of Lading, a somewhat quaint title, given that it is not only about charterparties and bills of lading and is a basic, if not the basic, book on carriage of goods by sea as a whole. Indeed, it has a deceptively (some might say,