Hormones and their actions: Part 1

This book is volume 18A of the New Comprehensive Biochemistry series edited by Neuberger and Van Deenen. The first 10 Chapters deal with general features of hormones and their actions, the remaining 5 describe specific actions of steroids. Each Chapter has a different author and is a concise and readable review complete with bibliography of up to 100 references. Despite the multiple authorship the style of presentation is consistent and clear. The emphasis is firmly on various aspects of receptors and events leading to gene expression but other intracellular events such as steroid biosynthesis and metabolism of internalised peptide hormones are also dealt with. From its style, the book is aimed at students who already have a reasonable background knowledge of the subject but need to be brought up to date and given some indication of the probable direction of future work. To achieve this the authors have generally included enough data and practical detail to sustain the pace of the text whose primary role is obviously to give a general review. Two of the Chapters, those on the purification and characterisation of receptors, deal with some of the practical issues and are timely reminders that esoteric theory is one thing but obtaining unambiguous laboratory evidence may be quite another. The volume is slim and easily portable. One obvious disadvantage is that for its size the book is very expensive. That could be the major factor against it for the private reader or specialists buying a copy for their research group.