@Alexpride
I agree that there are other mechanism based books. However, I am not as familiar with either to the level one achieves by using them in class. When you use them in class, you begin to get a sense of how they think students are to learn. I had a definite idea of how I thought students should learn. I thought more like a coach, you practice what you want to use in the game. I also avoided testing anything we didn't practice.
Re: differences in editions
This is simply my opinion on the economics of publishing. The chemistry used upon which the books are based has not changed and there is little (not no) new chemistry demanding inclusion. If teachers continued to use the same edition of a textbook, the used market would grow and author and publisher profit would diminish. There are a larger number of textbooks now than when I took organic chemistry. This reflects on the economics of publishing.
In the original post that I was answering, "Since I'm having hard time finding the topics in the textbooks…" In my opinion, this is one of the changes that I think is part of the new edition design. Adding more problems, adding chapters, etc., all result in changing the assignments. This is all part of a strategy to encourage adoption of a new edition.
Re: my books
My books are ancillaries. They are meant to supplement textbooks. They are also fairly short. The structure of the two workbooks (or the workbook with two versions) prevents including comments with the reactions. I added comments in an appendix. The handbook was written to fulfill a request by students who wanted something they could adopt to their problem, but did not want to practice writing the steps. This format allowed me to include the appendix notes into the reactions. As I did this fairly quickly, even I cannot give this book much praise. It does succeed in explaining several subjects, especially if my thinking may provide an alternate explanation to what you may find in a textbook.
Differences: The two versions differ in that one uses the pre-bonds and the other does not. You can read about this on my website,
http://www.curvedarrowpress.com. My teaching philosophy was if our brains are pattern matching machines, then consistency improved learning and inconsistency interfered. I introduced pre-bonds (dashed lines where bonds will form) so all curved arrows were used unambiguously and consistently. Because pre-bonds are not part of all textbooks, I rewrote a version in which I removed all pre-bonds and used the conventional curved arrows. I have never used this book. I expect that I will abandon this version when the books are refreshed. (I have other ideas to help with adoption.)
I suggest getting the blue book. You can write your curved arrows any way you wish. No one will be looking over your shoulder. The most important thing is to understand which atoms become joined and where the electrons come from. The curved arrows are devices that help you to understand this. If you understand reactions, you can write out a mechanism by only writing the intermediates and skipping curved arrows completely. If you understand this, then you will understand that students who have used the pre-bonds can easily adjust to the other notation.
Other information: about curved arrows,
http://www.curvedarrowpress.com/chem/curvedarrowsurvey/curvedarrowsurvey.htmlPrint out and do (I guarantee you can do them),
Minisampler