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Reading the second edition of Moore and Reynolds’ X-ray Diffraction and the Identification and Analysis of Clay Minerals is an absolute delight. It is rare to come away from reading a scientific book with a feeling of excitement and motivation. However, I was consumed by the infectious enthusiasm of the authors as a result of their dynamic, personable, and clear writing as well as their frequent use of humor. The second edition has retained the excellent parts of the first edition, revised several important sections of the first edition, and added an enormous amount of new, relevant information particularly in the areas of importance of clay minerals, physical properties of clay minerals, clay petrology, and X-ray diffraction of mixedlayered clay minerals. By increasing the number of lines per page, increasing by 15% the total number of pages, reducing font size in the reference list, and decreasing figure size (without sacrificing clarity), the second edition includes 50% more text and double the number of references (which now total over 500) compared to the first edition. The improvements have broadened the scope of the book significantly. Chapter 1 introduces the subject of clay mineralogy and provides a fascinating history of the serendipitous discovery of X-rays by Röntgen and the discovery of X-ray diffraction (XRD) by von Laue. The chapter ends with the history, importance, and literature of clay mineralogy. A significant improvement over the first edition is the section on the importance of clay mineralogy, including a discussion of clay minerals as catalysts and the expanded list of references, which includes many helpful annotations. Chapter 2 covers the nature and production of X-rays, including both theory and methodology. This chapter contains new sections on “other” analytical techniques for studying clay minerals and the definition of radiation dose. Although the authors continue to use older, manually operated X-ray diffractometers as their preferred method for teaching the operations of a diffractometer, they include an important new section about step scanning with a computer-automated diffractometer. This section contains valuable practical advice on how to generate high quality XRD data. Chapter 3 covers X-ray diffraction including X-ray scattering, constructive and destructive interference, Bragg’s law, and the mathematics of diffraction from crystals. There is an exercise on calculating peak intensity for the (001) d-spacing of illite and a new section on the reciprocal lattice. Chapter 4 covers general structures and physical properties of clay minerals with new coverage of octahedral vacancy and kaolin polytypes. However, the greatest improvements to this chapter are in the discussion of physical properties of clay minerals, which includes coverage of permanent and variable (pHdependent) charge on clay minerals, the electrical double layer, flocculation, cation exchange, swelling, and clay-organic interactions (complete with an introduction to the terminology of organic compounds). I think, however, that this discussion of physical properties of clay minerals would work better if it were placed after Chapter 5, which covers the structures of individual clay minerals. As it stands, Chapter 5 describes the structure, composition, and occurrence of individual clay minerals in much greater detail than the first edition. More clay minerals are covered, particularly for minerals in the serpentine, vermiculite, and mixed-layered clay groups. A much g eater depth of coverage exists for all clay mineral groups. There are new and interesting sections on industrial uses of kaolin and the formation of bentonite and tonstein. Chapter 5 also provides a considerable updating of recent work on the smectite-to-illite reaction. Finally, there are excellent exercises on calculating structural formulas and constructing structural models of layer silicates. Chapter 6 continues to be an outstanding treatment of sample preparation techniques of clay minerals for XRD analysis. There is a new section on freeze-drying procedures for analysis of randomly oriented powders. Chapter 7 describes XRD identification of clay minerals and associated minerals. The inclusion of calculated XRD patterns instead of tables of d-spacings and intensities is particularly effective as an instructional method. There is a new section on calculated XRD patterns of disordered silica minerals (cristobalite and tridymite). A substantially revised Chapter 8 covers XRD identification of mixed-layer clay minerals. New material includes examples of the use of peak broadening to characterize mixed-layered clay minerals, the effect of poor-quality, noisy XRD data on nterpretations, and of XRD identification of mixed-layered kaolinite/smectite and other mineral mixtures, including mixedlayered clays plus non-interstratified clay minerals. Chapter 9 summarizes well the theory and practice of quantitative mineral analysis by XRD, including the methods of external standards and of orienting internal standards. All new Chapter 10 describes XRD methods for characterizing 3-dimensional stacking disorder in smectite, mixed-layered illite/smectite, and illite. The chapter discusses composite XRD patterns that illustrate the procedures for characterizing different kinds of disorder (turbostratic stacking, rotational disorder, and octahedral vacancy-induced disorder). The book ends with an appendix that summarizes the NEWMOD computer program used to calculate one-dimensional XRD patterns for clay minerals. The book succeeds in being a combination textbook and lab manual for clay mineralogy students and researchers in the f elds of geology, soil science, engineering, and chemistry. The BOOK REVIEWS American Mineralogist, Volume 84, page 689–690, 1998