Spessard and Miessler's Organometallic Chemistry, originally published by Prentice Hall in 1997, is widely acknowledged as the most appropriate text for undergraduates and beginning graduate students taking this course. It is a highly readable and approachable text that starts with the basicinorganic chemistry needed to understand this advanced topic. Unlike the primary competing book by Crabtree (Wiley), S/M places a strong emphasis on structure and bonding in the first several chapters, which lay the foundation for later discussion of reaction types and applications. Theorganization of material is much more accessible for students who have never seen organometallic chemistry before. In addition to being pitched at the right level for undergraduate students, S/M presents outstanding explanations of important core topics such as molecular orbitals and bonding andsupports these discussions with detailed illustrations and praised end of chapter problems. The second edition has been significantly revised and updated to include advancements over the last ten years in NMR, IR spectroscopy, nanotechnology and physical methods. The authors have significantly updated four chapters (9, 10, 11 and 12). Chapter 9 (catalysis) has been revised to cover theadvances in catalytic cycle research. Chapter 10 in the first edition, which covered carbene complexes, metathesis, and polymerization, has been divided into two chapters in view of the expanded research efforts that have occurred over the last ten years in these areas. Chapter 10 in the secondedition now focuses on carbene complexes, and Chapter 11 covers aspects of metathesis and polymerization reactions including an expanded discussion of Schrock and Grubbs metal carbene catalysts. Chapter 12 (Chapter 11, first edition) is a substantially-revised treatment of the applications oforganometallic chemistry to organic synthesis. This chapter offers an extensive discussion of asymmetric hydrogenation and oxidation methodology as well as a greatly revised treatment of Tsuji-Trost allylation, the Heck reaction, and palladium-catalyzed cross-coupling reactions. The latter topicincludes discussion of the Stille, Suzuki, Sonogashira, and Negishi cross-couplings, reactions that have had a profound impact on the synthesis of anti-tumor compounds and other potent pharmaceuticals. In addition, the authors have included more molecular model illustrations, and introduced more modern examples and medical/medicinal applications across the text. They have included 53% more in-chapter exercises and end-of-chapter problems (23% more exercises and 81% more EOCs). The second editionhas been extensively updated to include current literature (62% more references to the chemical literature).