Book excerpt: This is an introduction to a very active field of research, on the boundary between mathematics and physics. It is aimed at graduate students and researchers in geometry and string theory. Proofs or sketches are given for many important results. From the reviews: "An excellent introduction to current research in the geometry of Calabi-Yau manifolds, hyper-Kähler manifolds, exceptional holonomy and mirror symmetry....This is an excellent and useful book." --MATHEMATICAL REVIEWS