Featured Reviews was introduced in MR at the beginning of 1995 in part to provide some guidance to the current research-level literature. With the exponential growth of publications in mathematical research in the first half-century of MR, it had become essentially impossible for the users of MR to identify the most important new research-level books and papers, especially in fields outside of users' own expertise. This first volume identifies some of the papers and books of significant importance published in 1994--1996 in areas of pure or applied mathematics. All of the papers reviewed in this book contain interesting ideas or applications, a deep synthesis of existing ideas, or any combination of these. The book is illustrated with photos. The volume leads readers to important research across all fields covered by MR.