John Warren's invaluable book describes historic brick and terracotta, setting out the causes of failure and decay, analysing available materials and evaluating processes of repair and applicable conservation philosophies. It provides the conservator, owner and student of building conservation with a comprehensive resource. Brickwork, with tile and terracotta, is one of those materials so universal, so apparently permanent and so much part of our everyday lives that its conservation is presumed to be understood. This is very largely untrue. Most brickwork is cursorily maintained and often subject to serious abuse. Neglect and clumsy repair are all too frequent, and the really skillful repair based on a full understanding of the mechanisms of decay is all too rare. John Warren is a Fellow of the Institute of Advanced Architectural Studies, University of York and is an Architect and Conservator with some 30 years experience in private practice, both in the UK and abroad. His conservation work has extended as far afield as India. At home he has been responsible for, among many others, the recovery of Horace Walpole's mansion, Strawberry Hill. He was also a founding Trustee, and for 20 years Hon. Architect, of the Open Air Museum of Buildings in Sussex, overseeing the reconstruction of buildings of timber and brick from a theoretical and analytical viewpoint. He was a member of the British Standards Institution Committee on Historic Buildings and is Chairman of ICOMOS UK World Heritage Committee.