Since the copyright on the Big Book lapsed; it's now in the public domain; so anybody can reproduce it in the U.S.. Some folks in recovery in the northeast part of Washington State print some awfully useful Big Books that are absolutely faithful the the original -- and much more useful that any edition published by anybody else!

Here's part of the Foreword to the Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous, 2nd Ed.: "By making the Big Book easier to study, understand, and afford, we hope to be of some help to our fellow alcoholics, but we don't want to change the text in any way."

Here's what they've done:

• print informative footnotes to explain obscure references or identify changes made in various editions of the Big Book.
• Add a page-and-paragraph numbering system and a detailed word index and subject index at the back of the book for quick and easy reference.
• Place a 1930's-era dictionary at the back of the book to show the meaning of the uncommon words--as the First 100 use them at the time.
• Print the Original Manuscript of the Big Book - with page and paragraph numbers for easy reference to see the changes that took place between 1938 and 2002.

Finally, they print the text on the left page of the book, leaving a blank, but lined page on the right so it is really convenient to make extensive notes of your own!

Price: $5/75 each, $53.00 for ten or more copies. By slow boat, the shipping is free.

When visiting their website, Be sure to check out the Hard-Cover Edition suitable for gift-giving, the shirt-pocket size Mini Edition (don't leave home without it - at $2.35 each, or less), and if you REALLY want to be thorough, efficient and well-studied, get the E-AA edition on CD-rom -- highly recommended!

To visit the site, click on the word "visit" below:

• Anonymous Press Study Edition of Alcoholics Anonymous - the Big Book