Book excerpt: This is the first comprehensive treatment of the interaction of femtosecond laser pulses with solids at nonrelativistic intensity. It connects phenomena from the subtle atomic motion on the nanoscale to the generation of extreme pressure and temperature in the interaction zone confined inside a solid. The femtosecond laser-matter interaction has already found numerous applications in industry, medicine, and materials science. However, there is no consensus on the interpretation of related phenomena. With mathematics kept to a minimum, this is a highly engaging and readable treatment for students and researchers in science and engineering. The book avoids complex mathematical formulae, and hence the content is accessible to nontechnical readers. Useful summaries after each chapter provide compressed information for quick estimates of major parameters in planned or performed experiments. The book connects the basic physics of femtosecond laser-solid interactions to a broad range of applications. Throught the text, basic assumptions are derived from the first principles, and new results and ideas are presented. From such analyses, a qualitative and predictive framework for the field emerges, the impact of which on applications is also discussed.