[Inoc]

Hi, I'm self-teaching myself/relearning chemistry, and I would like to ask the collective wisdom on this board for chemistry textbook recommendations.

I realize that there's already a plethora of chemistry textbook recommendations on this forum, and I've already gone through those posts, but my situation is somewhat different, which is why I'm asking again, for recommendations that are better tailored to my situation/background specifically.

I took AP Chemistry in high school and organic chemistry in college, so I have had some background in chemistry, but that was all years ago, and I haven't touched chemistry since. Additionally, since I'm self-teaching myself, I don't have access to a professor or someone else who can explain things to me if/when I get stuck on a difficult topic.

Thus, the ideal chemistry textbook would be comprehensive and exceedingly thorough, basically taking you by the hand and walking you through each concept step by step, i.e., A to B to C. Some chemistry textbooks jump from A to C and seem to expect that a professor will fill in the gaps or that you have some prior knowledge that will enable you to make the leap on your own.

Anyway, good visuals are fantastic, since I'm a very visual learner. Also, I learn best by doing problems (lots and lots of them), so a textbook that has an accompanying solutions manual would be best. At the very least, it must include an answer key to at least some of the questions in the book (e.g., the odd problems), otherwise I could be doing hundreds and hundreds of problems yet be doing them all incorrectly just because I can't check my work.

Looking forward to your recommendations! Thanks in advance!

[Arkcon]

Try some of these in this thread:  http://www.chemicalforums.com/index.php?topic=2402.0