It's a rare and happy occurrence to welcome an old-school reference book into the world these days. This one is well-done, although its popularity as recreational reading will surely be limited to Iowa obsessives. Most of the entries are rather brief; a few go on for several paragraphs. Appended is a list of ghost towns (and a few ghost counties). I enjoyed reading this, but I might have traded out the repetitive and uninteresting incorporation dates for a current population figure, and an outline map showing the counties would be welcomed by most; even Iowans will usually be a little fuzzy on county locations once they get more than fifty miles from home. ( )