[Forwarded to Conch-L list from Mollusca list:] I have received--with enormous delight--my author's copies of Mollusca: The Southern Synthesis. The first impression is an aesthetic one. The bright red and gold covers back and front have aboriginal and aboriginal-inspired illustrations in full color. The end papers have a subtly shaded photograph of a gaping tridacnid. There are spectacular color plates grouped at the center of each volume and as frontispieces to vol. 1. The black-and-white ink and photographic text figures are beautifully executed and even in quality. The text goes from the general for the phylum, to the class, order, and family and all the "super-" and "sub-" categories that pertain to the various classes. Each section is complete in itself, covering anatomy, behaviour, reproduction, biogeography, taxonomy and more than I have listed here. The general section on Mollusca includes as well the fossil record, the history of malacology in Australia (how happy I was to find a photograph of Tom Iredale!), habitats, physiology, and more. My list is far from complete, but it should indicate that these two volumes are basic malacological reference texts that should be in every malacologist's library, covering the general to the particular. The systematics are up-to-date, and include the best thinking based on new analyses often from cladistics (but there is no overload of trees). Often compendiums are uneven; not true for these carefully edited volumes. (Just ask any author of the various chapters!) This is scarcely more than an enthusiastic endorsement, not a real review. Get your library to order the two volumes and order them for yourself. If you teach, they will be invaluable. You will not be disappointed. Amelie Scheltema Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Woods Hole, MA 02543 USA [log in to unmask]