Rating: 
Summary: Breathtakingly thorough
Review: "Sauces" is a book for professionals and serious home chefs and is the first book I've seen that compares and contrasts both classical and modern sauce-making methods. The author emphasizes the importance of quality stocks in sauce-making and points out that a stock appropriate for older, roux-based techniques is often inappropriate for more modern, reduction techniques. This explains why the stocks formulated in, say, the French Culinary Institute's "Salute to Healthy Cooking" are so much more concentrated than those in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and other classic French cooking texts. Peterson also includes methods for pan-prepared (integral) sauces that offer the professional and home cook alike a rapid way to prepare an impressive array of fine foods.
Rating:
Summary: Breathtakingly thorough
Review: "Sauces" is a book for professionals and serious home chefs and is the first book I've seen that compares and contrasts both classical and modern sauce-making methods. The author emphasizes the importance of quality stocks in sauce-making and points out that a stock appropriate for older, roux-based techniques is often inappropriate for more modern, reduction techniques. This explains why the stocks formulated in, say, the French Culinary Institute's "Salute to Healthy Cooking" are so much more concentrated than those in Julia Child's "Mastering the Art of French Cooking" and other classic French cooking texts. Peterson also includes methods for pan-prepared (integral) sauces that offer the professional and home cook alike a rapid way to prepare an impressive array of fine foods.
Rating:
Summary: A Classic!
Review: A well-made sauce can add exquisite flavour and artistic flare to a meal (as well as "cover up" a dish that is overdone or lacking in flavour). Making a delicious sauce is both a science and an art to which James Peterson brings clarity. Time will show "Classic and Comtemporary Sauce Making" to be a classic included in both the novice cook's and professional chef's repetoire of cookbooks.
Rating:
Summary: Extraordinary book on sauces
Review: As others have commented, this isn't designed to be a recipe book. Instead, this book *teaches* you what sauces are all about. You'll learn the history. You'll learn the techniques. You'll learn the ingredients. In the end, you will be armed with the knowledge to *create* your own sauces rather than just execute others' recipes. This ranks up there as one my most cherished books on cooking. Any serious cook who cares about sauces should get this!
Rating: 
Summary: Good Source for Someone Who is Really Into Cooking
Review: First let me say that while this book is big, thick and heavy, it is VERY poorly organized if you are in a hurry. If you like to sit down and actually read a cookbook, then this book is a good source. If you need a quick reference for "something to throw on this piece of chicken" this book is not for you. It does a very good job of defining types of sauces, ingredients and so forth and the recipes are good ones. The book also seems to be quite complete in it's variety of recipes.
Rating:
Summary: Well deserving of the James Beard Award
Review: How can one guy know so much? The award is appropriate. Peterson's book is the first I grab when trying to remember something or when ignorant of the fine points. The book's encyclopedic coverage is great; people should use it for sauces. If they can't rely on memory as to what temp to roast a chicken, one can grab the "Joy of Cooking", Kafka's "Roasting", or any of two hundred other general books that offer the basics. Peterson offers the most discriminating cook a helpful hand and a new insight into a demanding area of the culinary discipline. A must have for the cookbook library.
Rating:
Summary: Amazing. The best.
Review: I LOVE all of James Peterson's books, but this one is in a class by itself. It doesn't matter if you're the Chef de Cuisine in a top restaurant, an ambitious home cook, or just a food nut, you'll appreciate this book.
This is not a list of recipes. Mr. Peterson doesn't want to tell you what to do; he wants to teach you how to cook. Be prepared for history, food science, analysis of ingredients and techniques, notes on substitutions and further ideas for exploration, and eventually ... recipes that illustrate all of the above.
If you're interested in recipes only, look elsewhere--you'll be annoyed that these are measured out in restaurant quantities by weight (this is a professional book at heart) and you'll likely be annoyed that they're hard to make, since without the background knowledge of the rest of the book you won't know what you're doing. You'll also likely remain in the dark, glued to your Betty Crocker, toiling in the kitchen following the minutia of lists of instructions you don't even understand. But why hide from life? Throw off the shackles, buy some Peterson, and learn how to cook. My friends are amazed after dinners when they learn that I made up all the recipes. The credit belongs to Mr. Peterson. He taught me how to do it--how to go from thinking "hmmm, maybe apples and basil would taste good together ..." to knowing how to make a sauce and build a dish around it.
A great feature of this new edition is the photographs. He shows clear pictures of many important sauces at different steps along the way, so you can see how they're supposed to look. This removes a lot of the stress of trying something completely new. Amazingly, Peterson took all the pictures himself, and they're brilliant. I'm a photographer, and do not how to take food pictures as well as he does.
So what else can I say? His Essentials of Cooking is also excellent. A great reference for the basics. So is his Glorious French Food, if you're looking for a phone book sized primer on French dishes, ingredients, and techniques. Fish and Shellfish and Splendid Soups are the best in their class. Vegetables is good, although I don't feel it's in the same league as his others. I'm waiting for a more thorough and authoritative update.
Anyway, in short: buy this book! It would be a bargain at $100.00.
Rating: 
Summary: Like a textbook for a sauce-making course
Review: I ordered this book after enjoying the author's Vegetables. I love the photos, but there is just too much information for me. If I were serious about learning how to make really complicated sauces, then I think I'd get more use out of this book. But I was a bit overwhelmed after flipping through it on my first look, so it's on my shelf right now.
Rating:
Summary: Highly technical, designed for professional Chefs
Review: I purchased this book hoping I can get a good recipes for making BBQ sauces, salad dressings or salsas and things of that nature. The book is highly technical. The first five chapters go through the history and details of sauce making. Eventually I might read this, to get a good background, but that wasn't my reasoning for purchasing the book.The chapters that follow are White Sauces, Brown Sauces, Stocks, etc. The problem I have with this book, is that at the beginning of the chapter it details one recipe, doesn't usually tell you what the sauce accompanies, then goes through talking about variations upon the sauce in short succinct paragraphs. All in a very technical nature with ingredients that I cannot find easily like Deer or Rabbit for example. Furthermore the majority of the Recipes are distinctly French in nature, with a very small chapter dedicated to "Asian Sauces" at the end. A lot of work went into writing this book and I believe it is a must for the professional Chef, but not for the average cook such as myself who want to quickly find a peanut sauce recipe that goes well with my spring rolls.
Rating:
Summary: A cookbook that actually teaches how to cook.
Review: I've been dabbeling in sauces for a number of years in my home kitchen. In my considerable collection of cookbooks none attempt to teach a culinary subject with the thoroughness of this effort. The book assumes a general knowledge of cooking, such as what temperature to roast your chicken at, and focuses on the theory behind what your sauce should do. While the book contains many recipes, they are presented as illustrations of various types of classic sauces. The author encourages the reader to experiment and fine tune their sauce efforts by illustrating the classic techniques and recipes. In all my years cooking and collecting cookbooks this is the first cookbook that I have read cover to cover. While you can simply peruse the recipes and use the book as a reference it really shines when read in its entirety. If one is really interested in French sauces and the theory and technique behind them, this book is all that will ever be needed on the subject. And if you're wondering what kind of sauce to make with those lamb chops tonight...
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