Those familiar with previous editions of Addison Ault's book will be pleased to see that the sixth edition is still an excellent text for the introductory organic chemistry laboratory. There are two main additions to this edition: a section on waste disposal with subsequent disposal instructions at the end of each experiment and some new experiments, most notably several reactions of vanillin.

The section on waste disposal is brief but to the point. some students may want to know more about what happens to waste after it leaves their laboratory; perhaps this kind of information could be added to a future edition. Ault divides waste into categories that correspond to particular waste containers: sink, solid waste, nonhalogenated liquid organic waste, halogenated liquid organic waste, nonhalogenated solid organic waste, halogenated solid organic waste, and solid inorganic waste. At the end of each experiment these categories are listed with the specific materials from the experiment. The instructions are detailed, but are general enough to accommodate specific procedures at individual institutions. This information is a wonderful addition and should help instructors who have heard one too any times, "What do I do with this?"

Ault's book is full of experiments that use "interesting" compounds, compounds with which students are likely to be familiar. Therefore, the series of vanillin experiments fits in nicely. The reactions include acetylation, nitration, bromination, reduction to the alcohol, conversion to the oxime and semicarbazide, and an aldol condensation. Also new to this edition are isolation of ibuprofen and acetylsalicyclic acid from tablets, and trimyristin from nutmeg.

Those who may be new to Ault's text will find a well-written laboratory manual that clearly reflects the author's years of experience. It is thorough, describing all the common lab techniques in Part 1 and giving concise, well-written directions for experiments in Part 2. The experiments provide an excellent representation of all the important reactions in a typical course. In fact, for most types of reactions there are several experiments from which to choose. Most experiments are written at the few- to several-gram scale, so that waste is minimized, but the esthetics of organic chemistry is maintained. Although microscale techniques are discussed, no experiments are written specifically for them (except for one exercise).

The book is full of marvelous line drawings for setups and the layout is such that wide margins are available for student notes. The author uses these margins to highlight important points and as a place to point out potential mistakes, no doubt ones that he has witnessed many times throughout the years. At the end of nearly every section there are questions, problems, and/or exercises.

Ault's book is an excellent text. In fact, I look forward to modifying some of the experiments and using them with my baby daughter when she is a bit older.