A clinician who wants to read about suicide faces a problem which besets the whole of psychiatry: how to encompass the many perspectives, each with its own discipline, all of which have to be included in any comprehensive and complete explanation of the problem. Face-to-face contact with suicidal people is central to our own clinical experience, but if we are to build up any credible theory about causation and prevention then these have to withstand a vigorous challenge from others, for example community doctors who seek proof by controlled trials, or social scientists who accord paramount importance to social events in the causation of suicide. Careful selection of papers and reviews in our reading is rendered all the more important at the present time when suicide prevention finds itself centre-stage as a result of the Health of the Nation targets for suicide prevention (Department of Health, 1992).