"Let me start off by saying that I wish that I had written this book! I really couldn't find anything to complain about, and I'm tough. I did find one typo, but I leave it to you to find as an exercise.

Lauren writes about her subject matter (SAS ODS) from the outside looking in. This is NOT a reference manual with a dry RTFM structure. It is an easy read, friendly and often colloquial, but it gets the job done admirably. That job is to introduce the SAS user to the new powerhouse world of the Output Delivery System - but Lauren often goes beyond this task in a productive non-tangential way. The book constantly points out unexpected results, as well as the expected ones when using ODS, and it tells how to handle them all. The book also often delivers tips and warnings which will undoubtedly save many potentially lost hours of development and debugging.

Two parts of the book that I was particularly impressed with (and thankful for) are the treatments of PROC TEMPLATE, and the use of STYLES in the REPORT, TABULATE and PRINT procedures. Lauren gets to the guts of both of these full and complex topics in a manner that will have the reader out and using them all productively the next time he or she logs on.

For the power SAS user as well as the neophyte looking to become one, this book belongs on your bookshelf."