"This is the first book in a new, highly exciting, growing area of applied mathematics, with applications to modern cell biology. The level is very accessible to a wide range of readers from the physical sciences to biology and the life sciences. ... The book is lucidly written and has an extensive, scholarly researched bibliography which will certainly be useful to anyone who wants to go deeper into the subject." (Hong Qian, SIAM Review, Vol. 57 (3), September, 2015)

• Stochastic kinetics: why and how?.- Chemical kinetics: a prototype of nonlinear science.- Applicability of the deterministic model.- Fluctuation phenomena.- Stochastic chemical kinetics.- Continuous time discrete state stochastic models.- Model frameworks.- Stochastic processes.- The standard stochastic model of homogeneous reaction kinetics.- Solutions of the master equation.- Stationary and transient distributions.- Simulation methods.- Deterministic continuation.- Continuous state approximations.- Non-Markovian approaches.- Applications.- Introductory remarks.- Fluctuations near instabilities.- Compartmental systems.- Autocatalysis.- Enzyme kinetics.- Signal processing.- Gene expression.- Chiral symmetry.- Parameter estimation in stochastic kinetic models.- Stochastic resonance in chemical systems.- Computation with small stochastic kinetic systems.- The Book in Retrospect and Prospect.- Index.