[movies]

CAREY's book should be a good book but i have not compared it any others yet

It's listed there in the first post.  I'm not terribly fond of that book, I have to admit.  I think that it's pretty dense and dry so it's hard to learn from.  It certainly has lots of facts in it though....

I'm honestly surprised that it has been the standard for intro grad level chemistry for so long.

[Yggdrasil]

I guess I'll put in my two cents.  I think Brown and Foote's organic chemistry text is a great book for undergraduates studying chemistry at the lower-division level.  This is the text I used throghout my lower-division study of organic chemistry and I found its explanations to be very clear and well organized.  Furthermore, the study guide that comes with the book is excellent.  It gives comprehensive explanations on how to solve the problems in the text which is especially useful for the spectroscopy sections.

[victor]

I use two books of organic chemistry (the basic one, because I'm a biology student) which are written by Harold Hart and friends for the first book. Then for the second book, I use J.S. Fessenden and R.J. Fessenden. Umm..what's your opinion about those two??

[Dan]

Norman and Coxon is very good, its called 'synthesis in organic chemistry' or something similar.

I would highly recommend Sykes - mechanism in organic chemistry to all first year undergrads.

[latent_lamp]

I find that the undergraduate organic chemistry textbook that is being implemented in studying o-chem (1st and 2nd year) should reflect the study patterns as proposed by the lecturer. In this instance, Clayden and Greeves become somewhat redundant, since it is dissimilar to most units undertaken (especially here in NSW, Australia).

I have religiously used Wade and McMurry, the former is exceptional in explaining reactions mechanistically; however, it lacks severely in the spectroscopic side of things. McMurry was the prescribed and I used to look down on it, but when it came to exam revisions it was ok.

All three aforementioned books lack one major thing, they arent robust enough to carry out a 2 semester session in organic chemistry. If they are rich in the reactions and mechanisms they lack the spectroscopic definition. McMurry doesnt even come with a index table for common IR, H-HMR and C-NMR.


I would have to say that learning spectroscopy is best through lectures, my lecturer (Dr. Andrew Try) was exceptionally good in teaching us this, he actually made it fun. Pavia's spectroscopy is a good book to have, its cheap, straight to the point and relevant to undergraduate students.


I question the feasibility of having Vogel or March's, they cost a lot of money and are not of use to undergradaute students. They are only good for those who are doing postgraduate masters study, however even then it wont be used to a great extent. These a library books that should just be borrowed, it would be (in my opinion) senseless to purchase them, unless of course your prone to doing a lot of lab work.


The primary goal of an organic chemist varies depending on his/her speciality and therefore the books suggested, I believe are not relevant to people such as myself and indeed the authors mentioned superceded by newer more innovative writers that make learning o-chem easier.

[movies]

I use March all the time!  If you're going to buy one big-book-o-organic-chem to use as a reference for the rest of your life, that'd be the one I would recommend.  The library is way too far away to go over there every time I want to know the A-value for an ethyl ester or check the mechanism for the Swern oxidation.  I agree it's not good for undergrad, but it's indispensable for a grad student in my opinion.

[latent_lamp]

Yeah I am an undergrad, from my standpoint March's and other named reaction books are pretty much useless. I can relate to postgraduates such as yourself appreciating March but its just too dense for undergrad.

I had the same complaint with Voet and Voet for biochemistry, it does assume a lot and becomes far too pedantic. I used March's to find how the KMnO4 oxidative cleavage occurs in alkenes, it seems the mechanism is not fully unerstood. I could only go as far as determining how the sigma bonds are cleaved.

I do use March's, but its rare. At second year we are still dealing with o-chem from the perspective of functional groups, important reactions such as Diels Alder are not mentioned as yet. So having said that, when we arent delving so deep in named reactions, a cyclopedia on the topic wouldnt be too useful.

[movies]

Ah, I see.  In your position I totally agree with you that March is not the best reference.  When I was an undergrad I learned a lot from named reaction books like Jack Li's, but there are better ones now such as the one by Mundy, Ellerd, and Favaloro.  I think that looking at mechanisms and following through them when they are correctly drawn is a great way to learn organic chemistry.  It takes some getting used to, but it makes figuring things out much easier in the future.

That said, it helps to know how all the functional groups behave before you delve into some of the more obscure mechanisms.  I think that you will find that very few mechanisms are really well understood at a fundamental level.  Most of them have maybe two or three pieces of evidence that are consistent with the proposed mechanism, but not definitive.

[latent_lamp]

Well said, I totally agree with you. I enjoy organic chemistry because solving spectral and mechanistic problems tend to be fun. I still have to come to terms with considering all the variables, both energetic and structural when proposing mechanisms.

I am still struggling with the unique properties of functional groups in reactions, especially when a molecule has multiple groups attached to it.

[nilgnay2]

too many good books for us, but we have no time to read them!

[chslj]

How Can I get these books (PDF.files) Thank you

[movies]

You have to buy them.  We will not give out copywritten materials on these forums.  Some are available as PDF files from the publisher or through resellers like Amazon.

[liu_zp]

[Borek]

You have to post in English if you expect anyone to answer.

[ch3mfreak018]

oh... what Liu says that b the O chem books are good but they are expensive and do you have the time to read them throughly