Of all the books you've had to study in chemistry, do you have a favorite text, and why?

Answer 1

Morrison and Boyd - Organic Chemistry 1st edn.

The 2nd edn wasn't as good. The latest is trash.

This is the book with the orange cover. I liked this book because it was consistent in the way it presented the material. First was history and origin, next preparations, then reactions.

The questions were hard and doing them really prepared you for exams, when I graduated I scored a 92% on the advanced GRE in Chemistry - mostly due to things I rememberd from this text alone.

Everything was based on the functional group approach, so you were incouranged NOT to memorize complicated moleclar structure, but to be able to derive them at will.

Answer 2

There is no better chemistry textbook (or textbook for any subject for that matter) than "Principles of Chemistry" by Michael Munowitz. The writing is fantastic. Its a beautiful book. But its for general chemistry. Its still worth reading.

Answer 3

"Organic Chemistry," by Frank C. Whitmore. It's the only chemistry book I ever read cover-to-cover. It's one of the few chemistry books I ever read for pleasure. It's encyclopedic. He describes things that make one stop and think. One should read it only after one has already taken organic chemistry, however. Also, one can buy it as a cheap paperback LOL.

Answer 4

I did chem and AP chem in HS.
But I was really impressed with Sienko and Plane Chemistry at Cornell, because I had Sienko for 1st semester and Plane for 2nd. (I had used the book in HS. I later found out that many college profs write their own book. Some were not as good. I enjoyed qual and quant, and organic and biochem and food chem .