Best Chemistry
Organized in order of appearance on the periodic table, each element is represented by a spread that includes a stunning, full-page, full-color photograph that most closely represents it in its purest form. The element's position on the periodic table is pinpointed on a mini rendering of the table and an illustrated scale of the element's boiling and/or melting points appears on each page along with a density scale that runs along the bottom. Gray, an element collector and Popular Science columnist, has created a visual homage to the periodic table of the elements. The left-hand side of the spread features a large color image of the element in its true form, when possible.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"My personal favorite element is Erbium because of the fact that it has an action potential property like a neuron in the brain."
"It's very informative but uses words that are easier to understand for young minds."
"Kudos to the author for making each of the metals interesting, similar visual appearance notwithstanding. I would be interested in a second edition wherein the author gets some big bucks from, say, National Geographic, and does a nice hardcover in the style of "Our Universe", with all the mythology illustrations and so forth."
"The whole family enjoys paging through it and sharing the facts about elements that we find in it."
"I was so impressed with this book that I bought it for several kids and then bought one for myself."
"The best part is this book is very easy to read."
"Beautiful book!"
"Terrible for a calendar."
Readers continue to turn to Klein's Organic Chemistry as a Second Language: First Semester Topics, 4th Edition because it enables them to better understand fundamental principles, solve problems, and focus on what they need to know to succeed.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Since we covered one and a half chapters a week there wasnt enough lecture to go in depth into the material (this isn't uncommon for Orgo)."
"I bought both volumes, and while they came to me dog-eared (which annoyed me, because I bought them "new", and dog-eared books don't have the same value), but the content is great."
"The book is in the form of a workbook, so you get lots of practice, which really helps master the concept."
"If you read this, make an effort to understand the material, and do the practice problems at least once a day - you will get at least a B in the class, minimum."
"Klein phrases things in a way that makes sense, gives steps and practice problems for each concept, and it’s a small book so it’s not a burden to bring to class."
"Shipping was extremely quick, and the book offers a really basic understanding of organic chemistry for people coming in with no knowledge of the subject!"
"From configurations to the 3 main reactions (Substitution, Elimination, and Addition), I felt like this book was able to fill in the "gaps" from my class lectures."
"This is vital for passing organic chemistry."
It is then organized by type of reaction including chapters such as "Fantastic Reactions and Where to Find Them," "On the Origin of Light and Color," "The Boring Chapter," in which we learn about reactions such as paint drying, grass growing, and water boiling, and "The Need for Speed," including topics such as weather, ignition, and fire. Nick Mann is the photographer of The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe and Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I enjoy reading it because it demonstrates new ways to look at atoms and molecules."
"beautiful book."
"My son loves these books."
"Amazing book with great information and facts with a bit of comedy."
"Theodore Gray explains how elements interact with one another, the basics of chemical reactions, and looks at some ordinary and not so ordinary reactions."
"For someone who is just beginning into chemistry, understanding reactions is helpful, while reading about them...lets just say he makes it fun and engaging."
"The third beautiful book in Theodore's series."
Best Physical Chemistry
INTERNATIONAL EDITION.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"An unfamiliar student may not be able to read this text and teach themselves - and perhaps Prof. Tro has overthought the material and made assumptions on a newbie's analytical understanding of the text - but from the first two chapters any new student could teach themselves chemistry without a professor guiding them."
"This is a used rental book, but the quality is okay isn’t the greatest."
"This is a comprehensive intro to chemistry."
"Brand new, great book."
"Fast Shipping."
"Fantastic deal!"
"I love saving money by renting books."
"I have just bought this brand new 3rd edition and compared it with my 1st edition."
Best Organometallic Compounds in Chemistry
Serious Science with an Approach Built for Today’s Students Smith's Organic Chemistry continues to breathe new life into the organic chemistry world.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"It came in the described timeline - which was longer than we both wanted."
"I took Organic Chemistry once before with a different book and it was full of useless information and facts."
"The easy to follow bulleted information format theme throughout the book is extremely helpful both in learning the material and studying for a test."
"I absolutely despise organic chemistry, but when I was taking the class this book made it easy for me to understand the reactions."
"What kind of disappointed me on these books were the mechanisms depicted near the end that are as chemistry faculty stated, "currently disputed academically" and seemed to be sources for less-savvy teachers to assign homework."
"I used Smith's Organic Chemistry textbook for both of my Organic courses and it is by far the best textbook that I have used for undergrad."
Best Mathematics
Best Physics
It is then organized by type of reaction including chapters such as "Fantastic Reactions and Where to Find Them," "On the Origin of Light and Color," "The Boring Chapter," in which we learn about reactions such as paint drying, grass growing, and water boiling, and "The Need for Speed," including topics such as weather, ignition, and fire. Nick Mann is the photographer of The Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe and Molecules: The Elements and the Architecture of Everything .
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I enjoy reading it because it demonstrates new ways to look at atoms and molecules."
"Amazing book with great information and facts with a bit of comedy."
"Theodore Gray explains how elements interact with one another, the basics of chemical reactions, and looks at some ordinary and not so ordinary reactions."
"For someone who is just beginning into chemistry, understanding reactions is helpful, while reading about them...lets just say he makes it fun and engaging."
"Anyone with a chemistry class in their distant past will thoroughly enjoy the full page molecule illustrations our textbooks were lacking and greatly appreciate the clarity they provide when teaching their youngsters about the magic of reactions."
"My 12-year-old loves adding this to her collection by this author!"
"Excellent book which has good reactons on chemistry, therefore. it has good demand."
Best Mechanics
The extensive index contains thousands of terms, most indexed in a variety of ways, in anticipation of how you’ll search for them. Dynamics and Vibrations: Kinematics; Kinetics; Power Transmission Systems; Vibrating Systems Materials: Engineering Materials Properties and Testing; Thermal Treatment of Metals Fluids: Fluid Properties; Fluid Statics; Fluid Flow Parameters; Fluid Dynamics; Hydraulic Machines Power Cycles: Vapor, Combustion, and Nuclear Power Cycles; Refrigeration and Gas Compression Cycles HVAC: Psychrometrics; Fans, Ductwork, and Ventilation; Heating and Cooling Loads; Air Conditioning Systems Heat Transfer: Natural Convection; Evaporation; Condensation; Forced Convection; Radiation Machine Design: Basic and Advanced Machine Design; Pressure Vessels Thermodynamics: Inorganic Chemistry; Fuels and Combustion; Properties of Substances Control Systems: Modeling and Analysis of Engineering Systems Plant Engineering: Manufacturing Processes; Instrumentation and Measurements; Materials Handling and Processing; Fire Protection Systems; Environmental Pollutants and Remediation; Hazardous Material Storage and Disposal Fundamentals: Math Review; Probability; Statics; Engineering Economic Analysis Law and Ethics: Engineering Law; Ethics. What’s New in This Edition 36 chapters with new material, and 46 chapters with revisions to existing material 300 new equations, and 128 updated equations 27 new tables, and 31 updated tables 7 new examples, and 34 updated examples 10 new appendices, and 27 updated appendices 35 new figures, and 28 updated figures 1,094 new index entries, and 108 updated index entires. Michael R. Lindeburg, PE, is one of the best-known authors of engineering textbooks and references.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"I just recently passed the mechanical PE exam (fluids discipline), and I thought I would share the studying strategy that seemed to work for me. The very first thing you should do is purchase this book, the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual (MERM), even if you do not plan to take the PE for several years. At this pace, in about 3 months you will have read the entire book (around 1500 pages) and at least attempted every single practice problem. At this point you will be in full panic mode, because you won’t feel comfortable with any of the practice problems because as I said, they are much harder than what is on the exam. When you have finished the book, it should be right about the time that you have to choose your specific mechanical discipline for the exam. You will start to feel a lot more comfortable at this point because the questions are much easier than what you’ve seen so far. Update in response to some questions: On test day, you will see people walk into the exam with dozens of books. I went into the exam with only the following materials and it was more than enough: Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual. Practice Problems for the Mechanical Engineering Reference Manual. NCEES Sample Questions and Solutions (Thermal and Fluids Systems). NCEES Sample Questions and Solutions (Mechanical Systems and Materials). NCEES Sample Questions and Solutions (HVAC and Refrigeration). A 1" Three Ring Binder of helpful equations, saturation tables, and conversion factors that I accumulated during the study process. I hope this has helped, and most importantly, good luck!"
"If you master this book, it is the only one you'll need (IMHO) to pass the Mechanical Engineering PE test."
"I borrowed someone's copy of the NCEES practice exam and between these materials and that exam, it's all the prep I did. You will see people with a ridiculous amount of materials on exam day, I took this book and my ASHRAE books (I took the HVAC depth exam) and it was everything I needed."
"Used this book (and ONLY this book + a unit conversion book) for the October 2014 Mechanical PE exam and passed."
"Passed my exam and everyone at work loves this book as a general guide to anything."
"I highly recommend this book."
Best Agriculture
The Market Gardener is a compendium of la Grelinette’s proven horticultural techniques and innovative growing methods. The Market Gardener is a compendium of La Grelinette’s proven horticultural techniques, packed with practical information on: Setting-up a micro-farm by designing biologically intensive cropping systems, all with negligible capital outlay; Farming without a tractor and minimizing fossil fuel inputs through the use of the best hand tools, appropriate machinery and minimum tillage practices; Growing mixed vegetables systematically with attention to weed and pest management, crop yields, harvest periods and pricing approaches. Based on low-tech, high-yield methods of production The Market Gardener is a complete, modern, micro-scale farming handbook which shows that making a living wage growing food without large capital outlay or access to an acreage may be closer than you think.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Even though I knew the book was geared toward someone planning to sell their produce as opposed to a home gardener like myself, I decided to buy the book based on reviews and what I saw in the book via Amazon’s “Look Inside” feature. The impression I get from other books and articles is that you can totally sustain your garden forever and ever off the compost you make yourself, and that may be true, but Jean-Martin states that the time and space they would need to create and maintain compost piles is better utilized by growing more produce- plus the organic compost they buy is predictable in terms of quality and composition, which are both important. This book contains, hands down, THE MOST useful information on crop rotation (and how to implement it) than any other resource I have found to date. Before buying this book I had spent literally weeks on the web, trying to figure out the best way (or at least a practical way) to implement crop rotation and not finding anything beyond very generalized advice to “rotate by crop families” or “follow heavy feeders with light feeders” or “don’t plant the same things in the same beds every year”. Trying to find out if plants needed a two, three, four, or more year rotation was difficult and there was a lot of conflicting information on what plants were heavy vs. light feeders (or in between), how long rotations should be, and so on. This book presented me with a wealth of actual, practical, applicable information on crop rotation, the whys, and how they do it. He gives the common name, the plant family and fertilization needs (good to know for crop rotation), intensive spacing requirements, days in the garden (which may or may not be days to maturity depending on if he direct seeds that plant or not, but it’s easy to tell which are which) and some other various bits of information and notes on the plant in question."
"As for the product, I do like the writing style which makes the book very interesting to read even though I am not from a farm business background."
"Hard work, proper tools and techniques, creative problem solving, and commitment to high standards are major themes of his success."
"Jean-Martin has shown me how to take the puzzle pieces, I have accrued from 35 years of gardening, and put them into a time-table of efficiency that works!"
"I am always looking for good gardening books and when I saw all the positive reviews for this one I knew I had to buy it."
"If you're looking for true encouragement and you're serious about farming, this book grants inspiration and a clearer vision to fuel that passion forward into reality."
"After watching his YouTube videos, I purchased Jean-Martin's book to improve my knowledge of how to produce better crops."
"some useful information, it was originally published in French and some of it was mildly hard to understand because of the way it was translated, a few times I had to reread a paragraph to actually understand what was discussed, but except for a few spots its easy to understand."
Best Earth Sciences
The Endurance: Shackleton's Legendary Antarctic Expedition.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The book chronicles the 'refuse to quit on even one man' efforts of Shackleton, who struggled against unimaginable hardships in the most inhospitable place on earth, in an effort to deliver His men to safety ... from what must surely be an unavoidable fate. These men WERE made of sterner stuff."
"Wonderfully documented...Amazing journey within the read itself."
"The story of the Shackleton Expedition is truly amazing, and Caroline Alexander brings it to life with her superb ability to recount the harrowing moments and triumphant rescue of these resourceful explorers."
"Although not what I would usually choose to read, this was a book for my monthly bookclub, and I found myself really enjoying it!"
"This book is released in conjunction with the exhibition to be mounted at the Museum of Natural History next spring; I only wish that some additional material, such as journal pages and related artifacts had been included to give the book a little more "warmth" since the subject matter is so undeniably "chilly"!"
"True story of hardship and great courage in the face of disaster!"
"Comprehensive and beautifully illustrated."
""The Endurance" (his ship) and Shackleton's heroic adventure to save the lives of his crew ought to be required reading for all young men."
Best Astronomy & Astrophysics
With more than 150 photographs including Hubble All-Stars—the most famous of all the noteworthy images— The Hubble Cosmos shows how this telescope is revolutionizing our understanding of the universe. ROBERT P. KIRSHNER, Clowes Professor of Science in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics at Harvard University, accomplished groundbreaking work on supernovas and the expansion of the universe using the Hubble Space Telescope.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Fantastic book with great pictures and very informative text on the history of Hubble and its role in science."
"Unbelievable pictures."
"A spectacular compilation of the glory that arts supreme in the universe, makes you realize that all the universe is full of light and feel the eternal movement of the spheres, which we are all a part of."
"Beautiful book."
"And a awsum team worked their butt off to make it and put it in Space."
"Beautiful."
"Fabulous pictures and interesting informative text."
Best Environmental Studies
The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural History by Elizabeth Kolbert.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"Along the way, other startling observations emerge: biodiversity is declining not only due to the "old causes" such as hunted to extinction for various reasons but also new ones such as global warming impact on life-sustaining ranges, the loss of habitat space, the inability to regenerate a species due to slower reproduction rate and the rapid vulnerability to new diseases (fungal, bacterial or viral). In the prior roughly 500 million years there have been upwards of 25 periods of species extinction, of which five are considered to have been major ones due to breadth and probably rate of surrounding change. Nearly all of these were due to factors beyond the control of the inhabitants at the time: changes in chemical balances, glaciations and global warming due to Earth orbit wobbles, volcanic eruptions and asteroid impact leading to global cooling that killed off many of the dinosaurs 65 million years ago. At a speed of change far beyond anything that has happened before - be it global warming by burning millions of years of fossil fuels, by eliminating living space on land or in sea for other species, or by sheer carelessness."
"Kolbert does a very good job reviewing previous extinctions, explaining the science behind current extinctions, and the potential for a sixth extinction due to human activitiy."
"Even in the 1968 Planet of the Apes, the most sophisticated Apes; Cornelius and Zira followed the status quo until this miraculously out of this world Taylor gave them hope for a much more civilized society."
"Presents events of the past, hypothesizes on why and how these events occurred based on scientific evidence, and speculates on possible outcomes in the future."
Best Biology & Life Sciences
Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: he starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy. Sapolsky keeps going: How was that behavior influenced by structural changes in the nervous system over the preceding months, by that person's adolescence, childhood, fetal life, and then back to his or her genetic makeup? The result is one of the most dazzling tours d'horizon of the science of human behavior ever attempted, a majestic synthesis that harvests cutting-edge research across a range of disciplines to provide a subtle and nuanced perspective on why we ultimately do the things we do...for good and for ill. Sapolsky builds on this understanding to wrestle with some of our deepest and thorniest questions relating to tribalism and xenophobia, hierarchy and competition, morality and free will, and war and peace. "Sapolsky has created an immensely readable, often hilarious romp through the multiple worlds of psychology, primatology, sociology and neurobiology to explain why we behave the way we do. “[Sapolskly’s] new book is his magnum opus, but is also strikingly different from his earlier work, veering sharply toward hard science as it looms myriad strands of his ruminations on human behavior. The familiar, enchanting Sapolsky tropes are here—his warm, witty voice, a sleight of hand that unfolds the mysteries of cognition—but Behave keeps the bar high. It is a magnificent culmination of integrative thinking, on par with similar authoritative works, such as Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Stee l and Steven Pinker’s The Better Angels of Our Nature .” — Michael Shermer, American Scholar. They should put Behave in hotel rooms instead of the Bible: the world would be a much better, wiser place” — Kate Fox, author of Watching the English. Behave ranges at great length from moral philosophy to social science, genetics to Sapolsky’s home turf of neurons and hormones—but all of it is aimed squarely at the question of why humans are so awful to each other, and whether the condition is terminal.” — Vulture. You feel like a lucky auditor in a fast-paced undergraduate course, where the implications of fascinating scientific findings are illuminated through topical stories and pop-culture allusions.” — Nature “Sapolsky’s book shows in exquisite detail how culture, context and learning shape everything our genes, brains, hormones and neurons do.” — Times Literary Supplement. “[Sapolsky] does an excellent job of bringing together the expansive literature of thousands of fascinating studies with clarity and humor….A tour-de-force.” — Library Journal (starred review). “Sapolsky finds not the high moral drama of the soul choosing good or evil but rather down-to-earth biology….a remarkably encyclopedic survey of the sciences illuminating human conduct.” — Booklist (starred review). “Read Robert Sapolsky’s marvelous book Behave and you’ll never again be surprised by the range and depth of our own bad behavior. —David Eagleman, PhD, neuroscientist at Stanford, author, presenter of PBS's The Brain " Behave is a beautifully crafted work about the biology of morality. Its depth and breadth of scholarship are amazing, building on Sapolsky’s own research and his vast knowledge of the neurobiology, genetic, and behavioral literature. For instance, Behave includes fair evaluations of complex debates (like over sociobiology) that I was involved in, and tackles controversial questions such as whether our hunter-gatherer ancestors warred on each other. All this is done brilliantly with a light and funny touch that shows why Sapolsky is recognized as one of the greatest teachers in science today.” —Paul R. Ehrlich, author of Human Natures.
Reviews
Find Best Price at Amazon"The downside of reading Sapolsky's latest work is it will cause you to question long held beliefs about guilt or innocence, good and evil, moral or immoral."
"We are capable of both far worse than we want to believe and can do more to change the world for the better than we tend to think we're able; and in both cases it's because of things we don't know, can't explain or don't want to control. But the more we try to expand the tiny sliver of knowledge we do have, with respect for how small that sliver is; and the more awareness we can have that the world around us and our biology drive much more of what we do in any moment than our conscious intellect, emotions or "free will" do - the more hope we have of doing more to change the world with the little bit of actual influence we possess."
"The newest on brain science by the world wide expert, Robert Sapolsky."
"Nature , nurture, early childhood experience (including abuse), and peer pressure all have an impact on behavior. There is no "silver bullet" that explains individual behavior. The pop culture rewrite probably would run 200 pages without the plumbing and wiring diagrams."
"This is an impressive book."