ISBN0130354716

This is the book we are currently using for my post-pchem inorganic chemistry class, and I am not a fan of it. It seems to be an easy read, and for the most part, it is, but the diagrams, examples, and problems at the back of the book are not good at all. In my class, we get assigned the problems at the ends of the chapters, and while the first few are feasible and are similar to the examples shown in the book, after about the fifth problem, they become incredibly difficult. Some of the problems I am not quite even sure how the authors expect an undergraduate to solve. The diagrams so far have also been mediocre, especially in the chapter on molecular oribtals. Some of the molecular orbital diagrams were not labeled and not to scale making the energy differences in molecular orbitals very deceiving. This is not helpful when trying to understand the chapter.

I think the book would be great if it covered more examples and covered more difficult examples, but without those, it's nearly impossible to fully grasp the concepts of each chapter.

This book seems to be the new standard for undergraduate inorganic chem. Came into use after I left university.

For those reviewers who don't like this text there are some good, less well known options:

1. Concise Inorganic Chemistry by J.D. Lee

2. Inorganic Chemistry by Catherine Housecroft and Alan G. Sharpe

3. Basic Inorganic Chemistry by F. Albert Cotton, Geoffrey Wilkinson, Paul L. Gaus

4. Descriptive Inorganic Chemistry by Geoff Rayner-Canham, Tina Overton. A nice, easy read for a one semester, terminal course. Only 569 pages - 4th edition. Not the be-all and end-all of inorganic chem, though.

5. Concepts and Models of Inorganic Chemistry by Bodie E. Douglas, Darl H. McDaniel, John J. Alexander

Check out my other reviews for other chem books.

The book gets a little confusing at times. I am not sure if it's simply the topic of the way in which it was written

The answer key was often unhelpful, as it abbreviates or omits many parts that are key to understanding a solution. I found that the practice problems I could do from the textbook were limited by the answers I could actually follow. It is an exercise in understanding the authors' trains of thought, rather than the actual chemistry.

I suppose you could say the book covers a wide range of complicated material, but that's pretty much it. It's extremely convoluted, an explanations are generally very poor. I had to search Google for supplementary links that actually explained most of the major concepts.

Not recommended.