Yet one has the feeling that much is being said in this motley collection of ideas, observations, and analyses, much more than in many other of the works on intonation available. And for this reason, the interested reader is advised to bear with the author, take notes, and enjoy the ride. This book has a rather amateurish, low-budget look, perhaps to be expected from university publications of this kind. The instrumental graphs bordered by thick black outlines and incorporated into the chapters in many places seem stuffed in a little too close to the written text, though there is no problem of clarity. The text itself is set in a relatively large serif typeface, which makes for comfortable reading, though occasionally some startlingly inconsistent type sizes turn up.
Minor typos appear here and there.
The DIY look of the design is not a serious flaw, though, for anyone after unalloyed content, of which you get plenty in this book. Overall, this is a worthwhile and rather refreshing book for someone seriously interested in intonation. The reader had better be ready, however, to invest a bit of work to mine it of its wealth. Reviewed by Karen Steffen Chung, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, National Taiwan University, Taipei.