Following are a few specific comments about some of the features in the text, and some suggestions for improvement in future editions.

There is an introductory section of about five pages on laboratory safety and cautions within the text about the use of toxic, flammable, and carcinogenic chemicals. For the most part, this meets the admirable goal of teaching students how to work safely with materials that can be dangerous. However, other than a general sort of warning in the introductory section, they do not caution the student about the hazards of corrosive acids and bases. In my experience, students are more likely to be injured by concentrated solutions of sulfuric acid, nitric acid, and sodium hydroxide than they are to be harmed by hazardous organic chemicals. I recommend that warnings about these hazards be inserted where appropriate throughout the text.

The references and cross references at the beginning of the experiments should be quite helpful to students and instructors who want more information. Many of the references are to experiments published in this Journal.

The authors have interspersed questions in the text that challenge the students to think about what they are doing and to try to get them to understand the procedure before they carry it out. This is an excellent feature; these would be even better if they were set off by shading or a different typeface or in some other way than a simple flag in the margin.

The authors use many common names--vanillyl alcohol, hydrocinnamic acid, and t-amylbenzene, for example--that will mean little to the students. I think systematic names also should be provided.

The book has a chapter on infrared and nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy that appears to be adequate. Many organic laboratory instructors, however, will want to make a much more extensive use of these techniques than is provided.

In summary, I find this book intriguing. It is certainly worthy of careful consideration by all organic chemistry laboratory instructors.