Average Reviews:
(More customer reviews)There are a lot of books out there explaining the chemistry of everyday things. For sheer readability, I recommend Prof. Joe Schwarcz's series of books, which are readily available on Amazon. The shortcoming of Dr. Joe's books, and most books for the general public, is that they aren't really meant to be a resource for teachers of chemistry. They only include the most basic of explanations that the layman can understand.
Thus, the need for a book like "Chemistry Connections." It contains the same "basic-level" explanation for a layperson, but also has a second explanation for each subject giving details on a more scientifically rigorous scale. Then there's a section of references (often reputable websites, vetted by the authors) for people that want to get even more in depth.
The way the explanations are written, and the choice of topics, makes this a resource best suited to the high-school chemistry classroom, or to a "liberal arts" (chemistry for non-chemists) university course. The explanations tend to be a little thin for a true freshman-level calculus-based chemistry course. That's not to say that a thoughtful professor can't make great use of this book for any level course - the choices of chemical questions are varied and thoughtful, making it a great reference when planning lessons.
The book is not perfect. It does not have the zing or flow of many other books for sheer readability - it's best used as a resource to give ideas for presentations and lesson examples for high school or liberal arts courses. There are some typos - there is a pentavalent organic carbon (horror of horrors!) in one diagram, for example. Finally, some of the detailed explanations tend to wander off-topic, for example, explaining how polymers are synthesised in a section on polymer structure. While interesting, it was not relevant to the particular question at hand, and likely to be confusing for the student.
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Chemistry Connections, Second Edition: The Chemical Basis of Everyday Phenomena (Complementary Science)
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