Book excerpt: Second Edition addresses all the topics critical to understanding the hearing sciences: acoustics, anatomy and physiology of the auditory and vestibular systems, psychoacoustics, and basic instrumentation. Written in a straightforward approach, each chapter opens with an introduction of the key concepts and ends with a concise summary. The practical nature of the book is demonstrated in the "Clinical Correlates" examples, which relate elements of the hearing sciences to patient care and engage students in the concepts. The textbook is designed for undergraduate students the more advanced chapters are useful supplementary material in graduate audiology programs but through this book, students will gain invaluable insight into the hearing sciences before ever taking a course in audiology.