Knitting in the sun -review

I reviewed this book on Amazon and gave it 3 stars. Today I tried to figure out the yarns used. 32 patterns and pretty much 32 different yarns as well. I didn't find all of them but after a long search on 2 different yarn index sites came up with most of them. In the book many are not labeled correctly as there are different weights under the same name and the book doesn't indicate that so you need to check yardage as well. Already in this new book some yarns seem to be discontinued. The main problem here is that the book doesn't give indications of whether the yarns are worsted, dk or whatever. That's the old way. The new way is a cockamanie number system which is very useless especially if you happen to be a crocheter.
Since I don't live in the states and want to use my stash, it's important for me to know what kind of yarn is in the pattern as many of the yarns especially in this book are the newest latest thing. In general after all that searching I discovered that most of the yarns are either worsted or dk weight. But that doesn't mean that you will need the correct needle and here is t he big problem. Sometimes the pattern changes the gauge the yarn usually gets into something looser or tighter and if you want to make your item the same way, first of all you need to know what the yarn gauge is supposed to be and then figure out what you can do based on the pattern gauge. So that all makes this book a big headache.
Because of that, I now prefer to use this book and similar just for inspiration. Then I can madly go my own way. Now we are lucky here because this book has schematics and that is the key. With the schematic I can then do my own thing and try to come up with the same size. See? The life of a knitter just gets harder all the time.
And of course if you want to make your sweater a different size from the sizes here, well you're are definitely on your own. So therefore this book is not for the beginner who is planning to make something from it. In general she will fail.