Classic Warships has released the eleventh book in its series of Naval Monographs of Warships. Book #11 covers the Lexington Class Aircraft Carriers of which 2 were built: USS Lexington CV-2 and USS Saratoga CV-3. 

The book is one of their "Photo Album" series that covers an entire class of warships instead of focusing on one particular ship. The book is in the same 1x1 format of all of the previous books and is 72 pages long. The book is divided into two sections; one for each of the ships in this class. The first section is devoted to USS Lexington and the second is devoted to USS Saratoga. There is a brief narrative at the beginning of each section that describes the career of each ship in detail. 

The front and rear covers display color photos of USS Saratoga at various stages during the war and are the only color photos in this book. The photographs inside this book are of exceptional quality and clarity. Steve Wiper has really pulled out the stops on this book giving us a wealth of information contained through these photographs. He has found excellent clear shots from all angles of both ships underway during the course of their careers. The best photos in this book are the shots showing each ship undergoing refit at various times.  These particular shots are extremely crisp and will provide a wealth of information to those who wish to model a ship of this class. Many of the refit photos show the flightdeck and superstructure which underwent the most changes during their career. Every time I looked at these photos, I found a new detail that I did not see previously. The refit photos alone are worth 5 times the cost of the book. It is interesting to note, that there are no drawings in this book. This is not surprising since this is a "photo album" type book and Steve likes to fill these books with as many photos as possible and not waste space with drawings or sketches. 

These books are designed to tell the story of the subject with pictures instead of words. Steve Wiper has become the master of this craft with his series of naval warship books. He is providing a source of information that few of us have access to and giving it to us at a reasonable cost. I would highly recommend this book, or any of Classic Warships publications, to anyone who has a love of ships.