Master builders in the making

Before the apprentice builder can consider constructing something useful he must first study the properties of different materials and how certain tools may be used to manipulate them. Synthetic organic chemistry is the same in many regards. Students nowadays must learn how compounds may be subtly modified, cut or joined on the molecular scale before they can set about making the chemicals of the 21st century.

A welcome new edition of Guidebook to Organic Synthesis provides the final-year student or recent graduate with a comprehensive text describing the fundamental tools and methods of the modern organic chemist. The text is generally organised by class of transformation, but also with chapters describing reactions of molecules containing boron, phosphorus, silicon or selenium, which nowadays are stock-in-trade reagents to the modern chemist. A completely rewritten chapter on protective groups also provides an essential summary of methods useful for the preparation of the complex molecules that are today''s synthetic targets. Each chapter is concluded with a concise summary and a good bibliography provides access to original literature. As with previous editions, the cross-referencing to Peter Sykes''s Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry should prove a powerful combination for the student.

Selectivity in Organic Synthesis deals with the topics of enantio- and stereo-selectivity in synthesis. Starting with a comprehensive general discussion, subsequent chapters cover reactions of alkenes and carbonyl-containing molecules, with further chapters on the reactions of molecules with a plane or C2-axis of symmetry. Both kinetic and dynamic resolution processes are also considered. Each chapter concludes with questions and answers and, most usefully, with references to original literature. This new book should provide competition to others on the same subject, and overall these two texts should ably assist students in the last stages of their synthetic organic chemistry apprenticeships.

Andrew Boa is lecturer in organic chemistry, University of Hull.