This book is born from a European Science Foundation funded programme on ‘Denitrification in Agriculture, Air and Water Pollution’ and has 26 contributed chapters covering denitrification, nitrogen fixation, general N cycle and applications. Usually I start to read such ‘formulaic’ books with more than a little dread. However, any such feeling I felt at the start of reading this book quickly disappeared. It is well produced, starting with good introductions on various fundamental aspects of denitrification up to useful case studies focusing on wetlands, arable soils and forest soils. Overall the chapters are well written with some notable highlights being ‘The ecology of nitrifying bacteria’ and ‘Introduction of the biochemistry and molecular biology of denitrification’.

It deals with a big subject well. It can be read by undergraduate and postgraduate students alike, providing a very informative and useful introduction (and in some chapters a lot more) of the biology of the nitrogen cycle. As a non-biologist, I found it very useful in highlighting the importance of the subject area as well as the major advances made and the challenges ahead. In such a book you can't really ask for much more than that.