This book is not intended to be a basic text in infrared spectroscopy. Many such books exist and I have referred to them in the text. Rather, I have tried to find applications that would be interesting to a variety of people: advanced undergraduate chemistry students, graduate students and research workers in several disciplines, spectros copists, and physicians active in research or in the practice of medicine. With this aim in mind there was no intent to have exhaustive coverage of the literature. I should like to acknowledge my use of several books and reviews, which were invaluable in my...

Bess, a Welsh Collie sheepdog, is old and ailing. Jack, her owner, has decided it is time to put her down. His young son, Henry, tries to prevent this, causing Jack's gun to go off injuring Jack. Believing he is responsible for his father's death, Henry runs away, taking Bess with him. Will this summer day be the last of Bess's life? Or of Henry's? Set on a Welsh Border hill farm in 1947, a time and place lacking land-line phones, let alone broadband, the story follows Henry's desperate attempts to evade capture, and the amateurish efforts of family and neighbours to find him and...