Chemistry and Life: An Introduction to General, Organic and Biological Chemistry

I took this book out of my local library as I wanted to learn about organic chemistry in a general sense, before I get down and dirty with it during class. This book starts off with the more simple aspects of chemistry that schools teach in general chemistry. I skipped these portions since I had already learned most of them , and so can't comment on them specifically. Instead I went to the organic chemistry sections, which seem to make up the bulk the book's center. These sections are helpful at grasping the ideas behind organic chemistry, but they never go into a lot of detail about any particular portion. For example, there is a chapter on Carboxylic acids which explains what categorizes that functional group, as well as a couple physical properties surrounding it; Such as how it'll make a salt with bases, boiling point trends. To me it felt like reading a Wikipedia entry, but one that is portable and tries to leave heavy mathematics out, and is oriented towards a more general audience. This is good, but there was a craving for more, as though things that may be important are being kept from me. Pictures/diagrams were generally well illustrated, I would have liked in a couple places for the authors to have placed the diagrams they were referring to on the same page for fast reference, rather than move it to the next one, but I can understand how this isn't always possible. Like the pictures there was the tendency to refer to something once, then use it a lot after that, so be prepared to backtrack. Luckily there was a helpful sheet at the back that had common functional groups discussed in the organic portion of the book. There are practice problems at the end of each chapter. As a general reader, you probably wouldn't have to go over them, as they were probably intended for classroom homework. They appeared to be based off of the practice exercises that are scattered through each chapter after they went over it. These practice exercises were well done, as the authors would go over a problem that you would see in the end of chapter questions and then work out the solution for you. Helpful to solidify the topics. Special selected topics are also contained within the pages. These sections felt as though the author wanted less explaining and more lecturing. Not that this is bad, as the pace was certainly faster, but in that same way, it introduced a lot of vocabulary, and new substances, which are unlikely to be heavily applied outside that selected topic. These Selected Topics were interesting in that they were written about life processes so felt like they mattered. One was written about drugs that people use, and short facts about them. Another one highlighted neurons and chemical signals, which quickly became convoluted. Overall, reading it was fun, and educational without too much investment of brainpower. Brings up interesting thoughts about the world around us.

Great book, takes you from 0 and teaches in a nice and easy to understand way fundamentals of chemistry up to organic

I'm a computer guy working at a biotech and wanted to know more about what the guys in the coats are doing. This book is a very good introduction for those with a science bent. I especially enjoyed reading about the Bohr model of the atom (which is what I learned in school) only to have it totally dissed after 3/4ths of a page as inadequate!I don't know how well it works as a class room text (this is night-time reading for me) but for a enjoyable well written text on Biochemistry this is an excellent choice.

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