This is the 16th offering in Scarecrow's 'Historical Dictionaries of Sports' series. Historian Grasso has written five earlier works in the series, covering basketball, boxing, football, tennis, and wrestling. For his sixth contribution, on bowling, he is joined by 'bowling connoisseur' Hartman. In keeping with the series format, the dictionary has a list of acronyms and abbreviations, a chronology (1819 to 2013), a brief history of bowling, and a bibliography. The main dictionary portion contains more than 400 entries. Biographical entries on notable bowlers represent the bulk of the content. Although most entries are no more than one page long, they are . detailed and informative.

 Other subjects covered include important bowling tournaments, organizations, concepts, and terminology (e.g., Scorpion Oil Pattern, Greek Church, and Dinner Bucket), along with numerous game variations, such as Scotch Doubles and Rubberband Duckpin Bowling. Of the 22 appendixes, most list various award and tournament winners. Given the general lack of information resources on bowling (other than instructional books), this dictionary will benefit sports-related collections. Summing Up: Recommended. Lower-division undergraduates and above; general readers.