The history of Teacher’s Highland cream is rather fascinating and Helen Arthur did an excellent job with her book “Teacher’s tale”. Based on the title and the product description on Amazon, I purchased one copy of this expensive book (£43!) expecting a high quality and more up to date version of Helen’s work.
Well, just after flipping through the first pages, I got very worried.  Just by reading a couple of pages, the table of content and browsing through the pages my first impression got confirmed:  The section about Teacher’s covers just half a page (basically the product description) and the remaining of the book is a copy of whisk(e)y related pages extracted from Wikipedia, including the section about Scotland and ships (!??). The layout and the printout look like a book printed on a personal computer in the early 1990, all in black & white and with rather small illustrations. Well, this is now my benchmark as the worst whisky book ever published. The book was promptly returned to amazon and hope to get my money back. Do NOT buy this book and save your money either for a good book from a known whisky writer or a good bottle of whisky.
Rating: 0/5

Whisky: The Water of Life, Margaret Briggs, Lomond, 2009.
Written for the budding connoisseur, the book is educative and the style reflects the education of the author: Teacher. The first sections cover the manufacturing process and the history of the water of life. It is concise, rather well written, but includes a few inexactitude that will probably be missed by many readers. The section on distilleries is the largest section in this book but the information provided here is very limited. The last two sections cover the topics of whisky tasting and cooking with whisky. The book reads pretty well, with a clear and simple layout, but without any single photograph. In conclusion, a rather well written book covering the same aspect as almost any other book on this subject.
Rating: 3/5 (4/5 for the quality of the text).

Malt Whisky Yearbook 2012, 7th Edition, Ingvar Ronde, MagDig Media Ltd, 2011.
The malt whisky yearbook is a very nice treat arriving to my mailbox around my birthday. It is an addictive lecture and once I have read the first page, I need to read it whenever I have 5 minutes. The 2012 edition is at the same level as the previous ones, fully updated, with new articles about the prohibition, the World Whisky Conference, blended malts, emotions, Irish whiskey and cultural differences about ways of drinking single malts. According the introduction, the 2012 version has 24 pages more than the 2011 version. I have not noticed them and an additional set of 24 pages would be more than welcomed. As for the previous editions, a highly recommended book as a Christmas gift and/or for yourself. Enjoy!
Rating: 5/5

Ardmore Distillery: A portrait, Ian Macilwain, Broombank Publishing, 2011.

Ian Macilwain first book, Bottle History, was a beautiful collection of photographs. This book is the first book of the publishing company he set up. The result is an original work capturing the distillery at a given time. Not really a book about technical details and history of the distillery, but presented more as a photo reportage showing the life and the dynamism of the distillery, richly illustrated by excellent photographs. I really enjoyed this book for its photographic content, but I wished that the textual content was increased. I am looking forward reading his next book(s).
Rating: 4/5

The Practical distiller: Or, a Brief Treatise on Practical Distillation, Greenwood Publishing Company, ed. 2002.
This is a facsimile edition of the original book published in 1718 and reprinted to 1000 copies, and was part of the wooden box accompaigning the Bruichladdich Enlightment bottle. The main interest of this book is to see the perception of the science of distillation in the 18th century, with many description mixing religious beliefs with scientific acts. The presentation is nice, but the interest for the whisky enthusiast will be quite limited, with the information outdated:
Rating: 2/5 For the historical interest.

The Classic Whisky Handbook: The Essential Companion to the World's Finest Whiskies, Ian Wisniewski, Lorenz book1998.
The book is rather well written, richly illustrated and covering the essential information regarding world whiskies (mainly Scottish, Irish and American). This is a general and introductory book about whisky and whiskey. A good book for beginners.
Rating: 3/5

Scottish Malt whisky: Scotch Whisky, Islay Whisky, Single Malt Scotch, List of Distilleries in Scotland, Books LLC 2011

The title of this book looked interesting and since I could not really find any information about it, I decided to purchase it. This book turns out to be a partial compilation of information abotu Scottish malt distillerey from whikipedia. The Layout is very basic, dry, without any illustration, no real structure and consistency, with sometimes the information very basic. In addition, then they make reference to an url, e.g., for Auchentoshan, the ULR is not provided, but indicated as "auchentoshan distillery website.

In other words, this book is a real disappointment and don't waste your money on this book. Buy instead the book about Scottish Whisky Distilleries from Misako Udo.

Rating: 0/5

Scotch Whisky Colin Bell's Drambuster Guide, Lang Syne Publishers Ltd, 1985
In this short book (just about 100 pages), with some humoristic drawings of John Mackay, the journalist Colin Bell is driving you through a witty journey in the world of Scotch whisky. It also includes a question and answer section from the Scotch Whisky association, as well as recipes. No photographs are included and the descriptions on the distilleries and the process are rather limited, but written with such humour that you will spend a very enjoyable time reading this time. Why don't we write books like this anymore? Whisky should be fun?
Rating 4/5

Spirit of the Age: The Story of “Old Bushmills”, Alf McCreary, The “Old Bushmills" Distillery Company Ltd, 1983.
Although this book was written by a multi-award winner journalist and author, the style is rather detailed and lengthy. Furthermore, the structure, with the long section about the history of the families’ owners and their associate cut the initial flow. The book is richly illustrated from a rich collection of archives and the research done by the author is very extensive. My main regret is that the section about the evolution of the distillery over time and the brand is rather limited.
Rating: 3/5

Scotch: A journal of single-malt whiskies, Alma Lee, Stone Fox Publishing, 2001
With the written section about whisky covering a total of 9 pages, information about whisky is anecdotal. All other pages are for keeping track of your whiskies tasted with your personal notes. This should be considered only a journal to keep track of the whiskies you tasted. Therefore, the interest of such a book is, to my opinion, very limited.
Rating: 1/5