Book excerpt: The individual chapters in this volume cover the scope and impact of main group organometallic compounds and reagents on organic synthesis during the last ten to fifteen years. In a number of chapters, topics are dealt with in detail that either were not covered at all in COMC (eg selenium, tellurium) or were given scant attention (eg oxymercuration, organoantimony compounds). Certain topics, like directed metallation and LiKOR bases have only achieved prominence in synthesis in the last ten years, and are now reviewed by leading experts.