This is an omnibus review that deals with the almost simultaneous appearance of four books, each devoted to a significant aspect of translation studies. Each publication purports to contribute to what their authors hold to be essential business of the discipline, and this reviewer fully shares their views regarding the relevance of the questions raised in the four publications. In particular, he thinks that the individual approaches deserve to be seen in unison. This is the reason why the analysis of these four publications has been composed into a single review article, which is also intended to serve several other purposes: (1) to show that the studies, with the exception of the last title, represent integral voices of the now well-established series Topics in Translation, also published by Multilingual Matters, (2) to stress that all four books manage to put into the forefront what in a too narrow linguistic view often tends to get overlooked, namely the place of translation, past and present, in real life contexts.