Book excerpt: This timely book provides a comprehensive and up-to-date account of CD spectroscopy and its application to the problems of structural biology. In particular, the newer methods of synchrotron radiation circular dichroism (SRCD) and linear dichroism (LD) are fully covered. Use of SRCD allows data between 190-160nm to be measured, where additional information content is obtained plus the ability to characterise biomolecules in diverse environments. The method has value in protein fold recognition and potential for use in structural genomics. The editors, Professor B.A. Wallace of Birkbeck College, University of London and Dr. R.W. Janes of Queen Mary College, University of London in addition to their wide research experience have extensive experience of running and teaching internationally at workshops on CD. Based on this experience, practical aspects, such as instrumentation, calibration and sampling are covered comprehensively in the book, which has been undertaken partly as a result of demand by those who participated in the workshops or by those who did not themselves participate but heard excellent reports of the workshops. The book will be of value to research workers in the general area of biophysics, to graduate students and to others entering research. Professor Wallace has been awarded the Astra Zeneca Award for 2010 by the Biochemical Society for her pioneering work on new methods of CD spectroscopy for biological studies. This book is the first volume in a new series published by IOS Press entitled Advances in Biomedical Spectroscopy, the series being edited by Dr Parvez I. Haris of De Montfort University Leicester. Each volume in the series will cover a specific spectroscopic technique for the study of biology and biological molecules.