Stefanie Hartmann and Joachim Selbig teach bioinformatics courses at the University of Potsdam. For their undergraduate course they wanted a textbook that introduced students to the field of bioinformatics, with a focus on the analysis of sequences and structures. Because they use the Linux operating system and the statistics software R for the computer exercises, they also wanted an introductory text on these topics. Since the authors couldn’t find a book that contained the exact mix of things they are teaching in their course, they decided to write their own. Their book also contains computer exercises, the data for which can be downloaded from the companion web-site.