Andreas Hirsch, Ed.: Fullerenes and Related Structures Springer-Verlag, Berlin — Heidelberg, 1999

The book is a new and fresh contributed volume on fullerene chemistry, consisting of six individual chapters. The chapters are devoted to selected attractive topics from fullerene organic chemistry and materials science. The volume deals primarily with fullerene derivatives rather than with pristine fullerenes. The book opens with a chapter on principles of fullerene reactivity written by A. Hirsch. The chapter surveys present knowledge and reactivity principles linked to the geometric and electronic properties. The principles are summarized into six reactivity rules (pyramidalization, electronegativity, bond alternation, regiochemistry of additions, higher adducts, inert concave surface chemical Faraday cage). Y. Rubin discusses ring opening reactions of fullerenes and designed approaches to endohedral metal complexes. He argues that ring opening reactions actually have the potential to provide easy access to endohedral metttllofullerenes on a large scale (including those with transition metals). Although several problems still have to be addressed in order to form widely open orifices, they do not seem insurmountable. The state of the art in heterofullerene chemistry is reviewed by J. C. Hummelen, C. Bellavia-Lund and F. Wudl. They in particular deal with azafullerenes the synthetic routes towards aza[60]fullerene and aza"i;O]fullerene and their derivatives. Physicochemical properties of azafullerenes are also