R. Gill 2010. Igneous Rocks and Processes: A Practical Guide . x + 428pp. Wiley-Blackwell. Price £34.95, US$80.95 (paperback). ISBN 978 1 4443 3065 6.

Second year igneous petrology is taught, in my department and many others, with a very strong emphasis on practical work. The undergraduates spend several hours every week developing their microscope skills, making observations of rocks and thin sections, and identifying minerals, describing textures and attempting to infer how the rock was formed and in what kind of setting. This should and does form the basis for teaching igneous petrology. And here is a textbook that reflects this logical order! The chapters are laid out largely in terms of rock types, including chapters headed basalts, gabbros, ultramafic rocks, andesites, dacites and rhyolites, granites, and the alkali rocks, with a …