The first edition of Ralph Greenspan's fly-pusher's hand-book appeared in 1997 and was an immediate hit because it filled a gap. At that time the Drosophila field was booming as never before, and new people were taking up the way of the fly. There were of course existing books on Drosophila methodologies but these were either dated (e.g. Demerec, 1950; Roberts, 1986), or comprehensive and beyond the digestive capacity of the larval fly-pusher(Ashburner, 1989b; Ashburner, 1989a). The Greenspan book grew from his teaching (at Cold Spring Harbor and on various university courses), and was beautifully written and accessible to beginners. We ourselves have used it as a first resort: telling any new student or visitor to the lab to go away and read it before asking a lot of questions. We can attest to its popularity: it is the most stolen book from the office...

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