The review of the first edition of this excellent book in Nature said that “any copy of this book that finds itself on a research laboratory’s bookshelf will be dog‐eared and coffee‐stained in a matter of months”. We would be inclined to agree with this, but would temper the praise by pointing out that, judging from a cursory inspection of a small sample of research laboratories of our acquaintance, anything from the Thibetan Book of the Dead to the Perth Amboy NJ Telephone Directory for 1987 would be coffee‐stained, and probably dog‐eared, in a matter of hours, not months. Nevertheless, we agree that this is where this book belongs. As we grow older, it is more and more that we need to know, but are likely to feel embarrassed to ask about. Similarly, as researchers grow more and more specialised, there is likely to be more and more material, from slightly out of their field, which they cannot define accurately. There are over 17,000 definitions here, all of them, in themselves, highly technical, but clear, concise and accurate. Appendices cover the use of Greek letters and other squiggles, a list of useful addresses, a list of relevant Web URLs, bioinformatics, restriction enzymes, and, sequence‐rule priorities of ligands. A volume like this in a research lab really is likely to prove its worth.
Our only concern, in this review, is whether libraries should buy it. Libraries catering for research biochemists will certainly find it useful if they can persuade their users to come to them with queries about definitions, rather than diving straight on the Internet. Libraries catering for undergraduate courses should also consider it. Most good undergraduate biochemistry textbooks do, however, define their terms as they come to them, so this may seem a bit of a luxury to an undergraduate teaching library. Public libraries will probably find that it raises more questions than it answers satisfactorily. There are a number of small general dictionaries of biology, of medicine, and of chemistry which are suitable for public library use. We regret that we do not know of one specifically in biochemistry that we could recommend instead of this.
The differences between this edition, and the first edition of 1997 are relatively minor. About 400 entries have been revised, about 50 added, and some of the appendices amended, with up‐dated Internet addresses etc. As these are, obviously, the parts which are going to continue to date most rapidly, users who already possess the first edition may not feel the need to update to this one.
