BOOK REVIEW D. Jerram: Introducing volcanology—A Guide to Hot Rocks Dunedin Academic Press, 2011, paperback: 160 pages, ISBN-13: 978–1906716226 Dávid Karátson Accepted: 3 April 2012 / Published online: 5 May 2012 # Springer-Verlag 2012 Plenty of written material is available for students and the interested general audience that provides appropriate infor- mation on volcanism. Specific textbooks, formulated rigor- ously such as Cas and Wright's Volcanic Successions, or put forward in an enjoyable style and logical manner such as Francis's Volcanoes—A Planetary Perspective, can be listed as examples of helpful literature. There are also good meth- odological achievements such as Volcanic Textures by McPhie et al., or fully illustrated first-hand experience such as Volcanism by Schmincke. Among recent, updated summary textbooks, Hazlett and Lockwood's Volcanoes has already been reviewed on these pages. All the above books, however, are extensive works 300 or 400 pages long, most trying to give all the available information on a wide range of selected topics. In fact, they do not really target the “interested public” so much as the university community and expert volcanologists, who can benefit from these books and hope to find in them most items they need for learning, teaching, or even research. By contrast, Dougal Jerram’ s Introducing volcanology— A Guide to Hot Rocks (2011) is written with the obvious design of reaching the widest possible audience: it has a reader-friendly 19×16-cm booklet format only 118 pages long, illustrated throughout with pertinent figures, and in- cluding photographs taken on location. Also, in accordance with the publisher ’ s intentions, the specific terminology is very limited, although a glossary is given at the end con- taining the most important keywords with a brief explana- tion. It goes without saying that the book is for the “beginners”, but at the same time with the aim of including all relevant information related to volcanoes. The book comprises 10 chapters, arranged in a typical way: volcanic rocks, how magma forms by melting, plate tectonics and planets, types of volcanism, effusive and ex- plosive eruptions, intrusive activity, effects on life and cli- mate, and monitoring and benefitting from volcanoes. Not only such a simple and logical ordering of topics, but also the language is attractive for the hypothesized “beginner”, exemplified here by some selected sub-chapter titles: how do I start?; melting the Earth; the runny ones: basic flows; raining from the sky—air falls; plumbing the oceans; why Man lives around volcanoes, etc. When reading the text, not only is one convinced that the writer has significant experi- ence in teaching, but also that he holds up-to-date knowledge and skill in most of the presented topics, proven among other Editorial responsibility: K. Németh D. Karátson (*) Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary e-mail: dkarat@ludens.elte.hu Bull Volcanol (2012) 74:1575–1576 DOI 10.1007/s00445-012-0607-z