Rapley R, ed. ($149.00 and $110.00.) Humana Press, 2000. ISBN 0 896 03459 3 and ISBN 0 896 03841 6

This is not a book for light bedtime reading but it is none the worse for that. It is a multiauthor tome packed with technical details. With such works one asks several questions, such as “are the details up to date and relevant?”, “are they set out in a way that is easily accessible?”, and “are they accurate?”.

Faced with a book of over 1000 pages, dealing with more than 100 methods, and covering many aspects of molecular biology, a reviewer could spend several years checking out the answers to the above. Clearly, that is not …