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Charles L. Sanders, Toxicological Aspects of Energy Production. Battelle Press, Columbus, 1986 (ISBN 0-02-948960-1). ix + 310 pp. Price £35.00.

The extensive variety of toxic materials that are released during energy pro- duction, or are involved in energy production, transmission and storage, has never been so clearly documented as in this book. It covers compounds pro- duced by coal and oil combustion, fossil fuel and biomass conversion, solar and geothermal energy and nuclear power. It also deals with inhalation and non- respiratory tract toxicology, air pollutants and metal toxicology, all from a broader aspect than energy production. There are introductory chapters on energy resources and basic toxicology and pathobiology. Overall, the book pro- vides a concise introduction to general toxicology as well as to the far-ranging problems resulting from energy production, and shows that toxicity problems are not only the province of nuclear energy or the internal combustion engine, but can arise in such apparently "clean" processes as solar and geothermal energy production.

Stuart James, Using Literature. Wiley, Chichester, 1987 (ISBN 0 471 91221 2). xvi + 598 pp. Price £17.50.

Brian W. Woodget and Derek Cooper, Samples and Standards. Wiley, Chich- ester, 1987 (ISBN 0 471 91290 5). xvii+ 299 pp. Price £11.50.

Richard Anderson, Sample Pretreatment and Separation. Wiley, Chichester, 1987 (ISBN 0 471 91361 8). xxxv+632 pp. Price £17.50. (Allpaperbacks; cloth binding is available at extra cost. )

Unlike many reviewers of the books in this "Analytical Chemistry by Open Learning" series, this reviewer has used these three books as the basis of an introductory course in analytical chemistry at University/Polytechnic mid- undergraduate level. Overall, they were satisfactory for this purpose, and, for their intended role as distance learning texts, were rather good. The volume on the use of the literature is excellent. It covers all types of analytically-rele- vant literature (standard reference material, compendia of agreed methodol- ogy, journals, reviews etc. ) in great detail, including copious specimen title, contents and index pages. Library organization and cataloguing, and abstrac- ting/indexing are the subject of a separate chapter, followed by a very useful description of on-line data base searching, all fully supported by reproductions of the relevant material.

"Samples and Standards" provides information often omitted from under- graduate texts. It deals relatively simply with the basis and execution of sam- pling processes, rather inadequately with standardization, but more confidently with calibration, standard additions, internal standards, etc. There is a brief