The book is divided into nine chapters, each of which is supplemented by a number of references to the primary and secondary literature, some as recent as from 2000, and a brief annotated list of sources for further reading on specific topics, both of which I found especially valuable. Chapter 1 presents a series of classical concepts in chemical bonding, from Lewis structures and electronegativity to oxidation states and the octet rule. Although these ideas will only challenge the imagination of those without any prior knowledge of the field, the authors should be commended for their ability to summarize them in just a few pages, with carefully selected examples, and without the excessive use of illustrations that plague most modern general chemistry textbooks. In the same vein, Chapter 2 includes succinct descriptions of bond lengths and covalent radii, multiple bonds and bond order, bond polarity and dipole moments, and bond dissociation energies. I found particularly lucid the section on ionic radii, which concisely contrasts the bases and limitations of both Pauling and Shannon values. Chapter 3 nicely synopsizes the introductory chapters of the book by summarizing basic notions in quantum mechanics and the roles of its key contributors, and a short (too short?) section on ab initio calculations. Bohr and the hydrogen atom, Heisenberg and the uncertainty principle, the Schrödinger equation, wave functions and electron density distributions, and the Pauli exclusion principle are all there.

Chapter 4 is dedicated to the VSEPR model and gives an up-to-date and honest review of its principles and predicting power with the aid of several clear figures and tables. I believe this chapter will be a favorite of VSEPR enthusiasts since there is certainly more detailed information than that usually given in general or inorganic chemistry textbooks, but not as much as in Gillespie and Hargittai’s The VSEPR Model of Molecular Geometry (Allyn and Bacon, 1991), which has been out-of-print for several years anyway (you won’t even find it on eBay). Ligand–ligand interactions and the relatively new ligand close-packing (LCP) model, which can be regarded as a more refined and complementary version of the VSEPR model, are discussed in Chapter 5.

The theory of atoms in molecules (AIM) and the analysis of electron density distributions, which are becoming increasingly popular with the advent of more refined ab initio methods and more readily available X-ray crystallographic data, are described in Chapter 6. A pictorial and relatively uncomplicated mathematical treatment of both AIM and electron density principles is used by the authors with the hope of promoting these powerful ideas whose pedagogical value is still not widely appreciated. A simplified version of this chapter has recently been published in this Journal (Matta, C. F.; Gillespie, R. J. J. Chem. Educ. 2002, 79, 1141–1152). For readers with a flair for the mathematical I recommend Chapter 7 and its discussion of the Laplacian of the electron density, which, to be honest, still challenges my imagination. The final two chapters of the book apply the basic principles of the VSEPR and LCP models to describe in detail the molecular geometries of compounds of the nonmetallic elements of periods 2 through 6, including a brief review of the presence of stereochemically active (or inactive) lone pairs of electrons in the heavier p-block metals. The book concludes with compact yet fairly complete subject and formula indexes.

In summary, this book is an excellent overview of both the classical and modern concepts used to explain and predict molecular geometries of the nonmetallic elements and their compounds. However, for more general courses on bonding and structure, either at the senior undergraduate or graduate level, the use of additional textbooks to describe bonding theories for transition metals (i.e., CFT and MOT) and the common experimental techniques used in structural chemistry would be necessary. The book itself has been carefully produced and I have not been able to detect any errors, either chemical or typographical, and it is certainly reasonably priced. All in all, I believe this book to be a great buy, and I definitely recommend it to every chemist with an interest in structure and bonding.