I got hooked on inorganic chemistry reading a battered copy of the second edition in Spanish of "Cotton and Wilkinson". Some 15 years later, here I am, browsing in awe and reviewing the new edition of what is arguably the most popular inorganic chemistry textbook ever published. Now with two additional coauthors, Carlos A. Murillo and Manfred Bochmann, the sixth edition follows previous ones in organization and style but its content has been thoroughly revised.

To keep the book at a reasonable length (not to mention weight!), some basic topics (e.g., structures of solids, VSEPR, Walsh diagrams, hybridization) present in previous editions have been eliminated. There are more than a few currently available introductory inorganic chemistry textbooks, including Cotton and Wilkinson's Basic Inorganic Chemistry, that cover in detail these fundamental aspects of structure and bonding. Since several excellent monographs on bioinorganic chemistry have appeared in the last decade, the entire corresponding chapter (42 pages) in the fifth edition has been reduced to about a page in the sixth. Nevertheless, key biological aspects of vanadium, iron, nickel, copper, zinc, and other essential elements have been incorporated as separate sections with each one of them. In the same vein, chapters dedicated to metal carbonyls, intermetallic multiple bonds, metal hydrides and dihydrogen complexes, and other aspects of descriptive organometallic chemistry now appear distributed appropriately among the most pertinent transition metals.

The book is split into four majors parts and a total of 22 chapters. Chapter 1 (45 pages) makes up the whole of Part 1 and contains an eclectic survey of modern topics in inorganic chemistry, from bond stretch isomerism and relativistic effects to Zintl compounds and chemical vapor deposition. Part 2, the longest, with 579 pages, is dedicated to the chemistry of the main group elements, from hydrogen (Chapter 2) to boron (Chapter 5, written by Russell Grimes) to the noble gases (Chapter 14), and also includes the group 12 elements (Zn, Cd, Hg). The chemistry of the transition elements is covered in the 532 pages of Part 3. As in the fifth edition, this part is divided into five chapters: (i) a survey of the transition elements, (ii) the elements of the first transition series (with individual sections for the elements titanium through copper), (iii) the elements of the second and third transition series (also subdivided by groups according to the periodic table), (iv) the group 3 elements and the lanthanides, and (v) the actinides. Part 4 (128 pages) consists of two complementary chapters, the first one outlining the fundamental reactions in transition metal chemistry (oxidative addition, reductive elimination, C-H bond activation, and migration or insertion reactions) and the second one containing an overview of homogeneous catalysis, including hydrogenation, carbonylation, and polymerization reactions. Five appendices (units and fundamental constants, atomic ionization enthalpies, electron affinities, ionic radii, and basic concepts of molecular symmetry and character tables) and a comprehensive 29-page index wrap up the book.

One of the book's most valuable features is its more than 4000 references to the primary and secondary literature, making it a leading source of information for anyone interested in inorganic chemistry. Even more impressive is the fact that the vast majority of journal articles, reviews, and monographs referenced are from 1988, the year of publication of the fifth edition, or later. The important chapter on homogeneous catalysis (Chapter 22) boasts nearly two-thirds of its roughly 230 references belonging to the biennium 1996-97! However, this commendable bibliographic effort is marred by a number of citation errors throughout the book. To be fair, most are just typographical and do not hamper access to the original sources, but a handful are more troublesome and difficult to spot. For example, in addition to the first author's misspelled name, reference 63 in Chapter 20 (p 1157) cites the journal Organometallics, when the article in question was actually published in Inorganic Chemistry (year of publication, volume, and page number given are correct, though).

Notwithstanding its minor citation flaws, the sixth edition of Advanced Inorganic Chemistry has been carefully produced and masterfully organized, and will fulfill anyone's expectations. Although it is not as detailed as Greenwood and Earnshaw's Chemistry of the Elements, it does a superb job summarizing the syntheses, structures, and reactivity of the elements and their compounds. While it may not be the ideal introductory inorganic chemistry textbook, it remains unchallenged in the domain of general reference works. As such, this venerable bible of inorganic chemistry should undoubtedly be part of every chemist's personal library and I recommend it wholeheartedly. In closing, I can only agree with a colleague and friend who claimed, perhaps a little too picturesquely, that this will be the inorganic chemistry book he will like to have "if stranded on a desert island"!