Organic Chemistry [Englisch] [Gebundene Ausgabe]

OK, so you're considering which book to get for 2 semester intro organic chemistry. Just buy the assigned text for the course, right? well, maybe.

You should know there are 2 basic approaches to the teaching of organic chem: The functional group approach and mechanism approach. By far, the former is much more commonly used and the way organic chem has been taught for decades. Problem is, this approach promotes tedious memorization and you can be overwhelmed by the volume. Also, most organic chemists don't think in terms of functional groups. They understand their subject by organizing/systematizing reactions according to mechanism and reaction type as governed by a few basic principles.

The number of books that support this mechanism approach are few in number. They are (this list may be incomplete):

Organic Chemistry by Marye Anne Fox, James K. Whitesell (ISBN 0763721972)

Organic Chemistry by Clayden, Greeves, Warren, Wothers

A Guidebook to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry (6th Edition) by Peter Sykes

A Primer to Mechanism in Organic Chemistry by Peter Sykes

Organic Chemistry by Joseph M. Hornback (ISBN 0534389511)

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For the the functional group approach:

Just based on its sheer size and completeness, the best book has to be Organic Chemistry (now in its 6th Edition) by Morrison & Boyd (ISBN 0136436692). It's the gold standard by which all other functional group books are judged.

2nd best is probably Organic Chemistry by G. Marc Loudon (ISBN 0195119991).

All the rest - Ege, McMurry, Solomons, Wade, Carey, Bruice, Vollhardt, Maitland Jones Jr., Streitwieser/Heathcock, Brown/Foote - they're just clones of one another. The exceptions might be Bruice and Jones Jr. which employ a quasi-mechanism/functional group approach.

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For those of you who want to start off with "just the facts" before tackling these organic tomes try: "Organic Chemistry: A Short Course" by Hart/Craine/Hart/Hadad now in its 12th edition.

The 2 books by David R. Klein are also recommended: "Organic Chemistry I as a Second Language: Translating the Basic Concepts" and "Organic Chemistry II as a Second Language: Second Semester Topics".

Another good intro: The Nuts and Bolts of Organic Chemistry: A Student's Guide to Success by Joel Karty

For the lab portion get "The Organic Chem Lab Survival Manual: A Student's Guide to Techniques" by James W. Zubrick

Check out my listmania "good organic chemistry books from simple to intermediate" for other organic books.

P.S. I should really mention Solomons since I am "reviewing" his book. It's very average and middle-of-the road. there. done.

disclaimer: I used the 3rd edition of Solomons years ago. Why does this book need 9 (and now 10) editions? The teaching of organic chem. hasn't fundamentally changed in a long time and certainly not in the past 20 years.

The entire thing is riddled with graphical errors that further confuse the already convoluted, illogically arranged text. Hydrogens constantly turn into methyl groups mid mechanism. The real world connection examples often use mechanisms that are blatantly impossible. NMR data is scattered throughout the book in the most useless manner possible. The element xenon has been replaced with the mysterious previously unknown element "xeno" on the periodic table and I doubt IUPAC had anything to do with the new nomenclature. This book is a waste of money and paper considering how many other organic chem books are out there.

I am in a first semester Organic Chem class. My teacher does not like this book, but it is required at the university (due to a recent switch from Wade). I purchased it along with the solutions manual and to tell you the truth, this is one of the worst textbooks I've ever used (after taking multiple Engineering courses in math, physics, chemistry, biology, biomechanics, etc). It touches on everything without ever testing the reader on it. For example, in introducing the conformations of alkanes, it never asks the reader to explain anything through Newman projections. Well, given that my lecture consisted of two lectures doing this to explain cyclohexane/pentane conformations, I'd say this is fairly important (this is not just my class, either, this seems to be the trend). Regardless, the problems are absolutely insulting--draw all 8 isomers of C4H10O2 is the book's idea of a good problem. Sounds rather lazy to me. When will I ever need to draw all of those isomers? That's what so many problems, especially the in-text ones, consist of.

My real motivation for writing this comes from my use of the Wade Organic Chem textbook--for only about 2 hours. It is 100% head and shoulders above this book and I have purchased it along with its solution manual to use for the rest of this course and the next. I have no idea why we switched, but I will still be using Wade.