ISBN0072979526

The book was fine. It's our class textbook and it was cheaper new that it was used in the bookstore at school. However, I had problems with it being shipped with me. The street I live on got renumbered and UPS was unable to find my house. I ended up picking it up from their offices even though I paid to have it shipped next day. So that was a huge hassle with amazon and their shipper UPS.

Ok, perhaps I'm being a little harsh. Whether or not you enjoy this book by the esteemed Professor Emeritus Dr. Carey (Virginia ) depends largely on the teaching methods you embrace. Personally, I am the "Joe Friday" of students. Just the facts please unless and until I ask for more. As I read Carey, I envision a group of gangly sophomores following their Professor around their Jeffersonian campus as their teacher drops morsels of wisdom and his students anxiously retrieve them. As the brisk walk comes to a close, Professor Carey will guide you back to the classroom from where you originally departed and tell you all that you really needed to know about organic chemistry.

All of the aforementioned is a "Careyesque" way of saying, if you use this text, always read the last paragraph first. If you curious about "Why?", then go back and read the preceding paragraphs ( in order ).

The fine details that Carey offers in some areas are truly quite interesting on subsequent reading but at first they are tiresome and admittedly distracting.

I grew to love organic chemistry. Like most difficult subjects, it requires multiple textbooks to truly tame this monster. If you find the Carey approach annoying, I suggest some additional material.

Brown/Foote have published a fine text on Organic Chemistry with an additional solutions manual. No fluff here. These guys grew on watching Friday and Gannon. They are an excellent source of mechnisms and practice problems not found in Carey. Another nice benefit of Brown/Foote is that they organize the problems in the back of each chapter under the topic of the material so you can target your weaknesses. Strongly recommended. 5 stars.

Also, please utilize Professor Klein's ( Hopkins ) two books ( Organic Chemistry as a 2nd language and Second semester topics ). I found his books to be a wonderful STARTING point for topics and he often has wonderful heuristics that are helpful. Beware however, that I did find direct contradictions in a few areas between Carey and Klein on the subject of Substitution vs Elimination competition. In fairness to both, the matter is very difficult to illuminate because many times the answer is a prediction but results must be determined experimentally.

Finally, do NOT buy flash cards. You must make your own. Use them religiously. Keep score of the number of times to get the answer right AND the number of times you get it wrong. Keep working the cards until you get it right more times than you get it wrong.

I also purchased the solutions manual for Carey. All I can say is that you CANNOT live without it. It is a superb tool when used properly. The practice exams at the end of each chapter are terrific.

Good luck on your journey. May you tame the monster young Jedi.

Orgo (I, II) was the most difficult subject I EVER had. I've taken both sections over and went through 2 books. The strengths of this particular book are its reaction summaries: before introducing a topic, the author dedicates a page or two to summarizing the reactions that lead up to this topic and then summarizes the reactions of the topic once he's through explaining it. Example: 'Reactions That Yield Alcohols' and then `Reactions of Alcohols'. Summaries are accompanied by short, yet thorough descriptions. With elaborate and comprehensive reaction mechanisms, this book is more of a reference that a textbook, although the text is inclusive and relatively simple. If you understand the lectures and use this book for mechanisms, reactions and problems, rather that for understanding concepts, you'll be fine.

One major weakness of this book is the NMR IR Spectroscopy section, which does a poor job of explaining this easy but confusing topic. Another shortcoming -- the only all-inclusive table of functional groups is provided in the index at the very back of the book, so you'll have to make a copy to keep it handy at all times. The problems deserve a mention -- most are simple and repetitive, those who do them get the grades.

A general note to the beginners: ALLNIGHTERS BEFORE ORGO EXAMS DO NOT WORK (even if you put Ritalin in your coffee)!!! Do yourselves a big favor, study constantly through the semester and just review before the exam. Concentrate on mechanisms and problems rather than on theory and you will successed. Remember -- memorization comes from doing problems and not from repeating a reaction 10 times in a row. All the luck in the world to the brave souls who register for o-chem!

An excellent text book for an introduction to Organic Chemistry, comprehensive and well structured.

I found this book to be quite excellent; it was used for an undergraduate course which I dropped, but I found the book so useful that I kept it. I find that this book is clearer than many professors. The strengths of this book are that it does a good job of discussing unifying themes, patterns, etc. The weaknesses are that it presents a somewhat abstract, idealized view of the subject, with little or no discussion of practical concerns or connections to other subjects. The author does not do a very good job of pointing the reader towards further reading, or discussing the ways in which one might pursue deeper questions.

One of the other reviewers complained that this book has too much explanation--I think this extra discussion of the "how" and "why" is actually critical for learning the subject of O. chem. Many students find organic chemistry difficult because they approach it as a collection of random facts to be memorized. In this book, the author consistently discusses unifying themes, and weaves specific facts together with general principles into a coherent fabric of ideas. This makes otherwise painful material seem natural and easy--for the students who have the patience to read every paragraph thoroughly. (Students who don't want to do this, in my opinion, have no business taking O. Chem).

The weaknesses of this book is that it is too idealized and perhaps at times too abstract. While the book does discuss reaction mechanisms and synthesis techniques, they are done in an overly idealized way. The author presents a very classical (and I would even go so far as to say short-sighted) view of Chemistry in which byproducts of reactions are totally ignored. Someone interested in chemical engineering, for instance, will likely find this book inadequate for their needs. Similarly, people interested in Biology and Biochemistry will find that this book does not make or even set up any of the obvious connections to these subjects. The thoughtful reader will find too many questions that arise naturally in the text that are not even mentioned, let alone addressed. Similarly, there is very little discussion of health and environmental issues associated with the various families of compounds. This is a shame, because the general trends and patterns in the toxicity and hazards associated with various compounds are intimately related to the trends and patterns in molecule structure and form that are discussed in this book.

Overall, this is an above-average text that is well-suited for use as a textbook in a basic organic chemistry class. I think it is exceptionally well-suited to self-study. In either case, however, readers interested in chemical engineering, biology, biochemistry, and/or environmental issues, would need to rely on supplementary materials to address some of the omissions I described above.