Book excerpt: Crystal engineering is an interdisciplinary area that cuts across the traditional subdivisions of chemistry. Fuelled by our increasingly precise understanding of the chemistry and properties of supramolecular systems, interest in the potential of the field has increased rapidly. The topics discussed in the 28 contributions in this book provide a state-of-the-art description of the field and offer new research ideas that, if pursued, will serve to strengthen the field at the interface between supramolecular chemistry and materials science.