Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2018

Every year the community of astrophysicists looks forward to this volume of reviews that informs them of the current state of research in a few select fields. These reviews not only try to find the important threads of research in the past years or decades, but often also set the tone for future research in these fields. This makes them valuable not only for the beginners, who may want to familiarize themselves with the past works, but also for the active practitioners, for new insights and ideas for further research. In addition, every volume comes with a memoir of a well-known astrophysicist, whose story of research serves as a resource material for historians, and inspiration for young astronomers.