James R. Hanson's Protecting Groups in Organic Synthesis provides a nice illustration of most common protecting groups for general functional groups (alcohols, ketones, aldehydes, carboxylic acids, amines etc.). As already mentioned in the preface of the book, object is to give mechanistic rationale for the use of different kinds of protecting groups for different situations. It's therefore understandable that the book is not "a handbook for synthetic organic chemist" even though there is a literature reference for almost every protecting group presented. In the final chapter of the book is also few examples of experimental methods used for introduction of protecting group but examples are by no means "general" (as there is no such concept in chemistry anyway...). Since the aim of the book is understanding the reasons and consequences editors should have paid more attention to reaction schemes. First of all schemes are mostly presented without reagents (as they are mentioned in the text, but only by their name) which makes it bit difficult to follow the reaction. Another irritating thing with schemes is that whenever mechanism has been tried to be presented, arrows indicating moving electrons are pointing more or less fortuitously. Although a person familiar with mechanisms can easily see where the electrons are flowing this kind of features makes the book look like that it has been finished in a hurry. Because of the approach author has chosen I would say that Protecting Groups in Organic Synthesis is an excellent book for undergraduate student who is not so familiar with protecting groups. At the same time the book is quite "light" for persons more skilled in the art.