The series Advances in the Physics of Particles and Nuclei (APPN) is devoted to the archiving, in printed high-quality book format, of the comprehensive, long shelf-life reviews published in The European Physical Journal A and C. APPN will be of benefit in particular to those librarians and research groups, who have chosen to have only electronic access to these journals. Occasionally, original material in review format and refereed by the series' editorial board will also be included. This volume contains the following four reviews: C.E. DeTar and U.M. Heller: QCD Thermodynamics from the Lattice B.R. Holstein: Hadronic Parity violation and Effective Field Theory M. Signore and D. Puy: Cosmic Microwave Background and First Molecules in the Early Universe S. Bethke: The 2009 World Average of alpha s