Because of the disparate sources, the bulk, and indeed the antiquity, of much palaeontological literature, it is difficult for the average geologist or keen amateur to identify fossils found in the field. Thus the carefully edited and well produced Palaeontological Association's Field Guide series is very welcome. The guides range from substantial topics, such as Fossils of the Chalk to much more restricted areas, such as this new one, which deals only with the fossils from the small Silurian inliers of the Pentland Hills, which lie within the Midland Valley to the southwest of Edinburgh. Because the area is largely rough moorland, only a few stream sections expose rock and yield fossils, but the latter are abundant in places, relatively undistorted and well preserved as moulds within mudstones, and they have attracted the attention of collectors since the mid nineteenth century. The age range too is very restricted: only the very top of the Llandovery and possibly just the very basal part of the Wenlock are represented in the Pentlands. However, the editors have persuaded eighteen specialists to combine to present brief but authoritative descriptions of the entire fauna, which ranges from algae and sponges through most of the invertebrate groups. Highlights for me are the reviews by Emma Gallagher and David Harper on the brachiopods (18 species), Jan-Ove Ebbestad on the gastropods (9 species), and the eurypterids and other strange arthropods (15 species) by Lyall Anderson, but both the academic standards and the quality of the photographs and other illustrations in this pocket-sized guide book are excellent throughout. A book which is reasonably priced and well worth buying if you are going to the area: it would be a real challenge to find all of the biota described in it!