Customer Reviews

Biochemistry, Vol. 1: Biomolecules, Mechanisms of Enzyme Action, and Metabolism

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I notice that some reviewers complain of the difficulty of this book. I would have to say that this is only true to the extent that Voet & Voet covers so much material that there are bound to be a few difficulties. Clearly;- there is room for improvment in this category.

However, demanding crystal clarity from a subject that is far from set in stone is an unreasonable demand. You can only compare V&V to other books in its category. In my opinion, this book is the best overall biochemistry book. If you read Stryer or Lodish, you begin to think that you understand biochemistry. However, when you read a Voet & Voet chapter on the same subject, you realize that the other books were just glossing the subject. While Lodish gives you a better understanding of the purpose of various biochemical systems, the V&V gives you the nuts and bolts approach.

I would have to say that James Watson's new book "Molecular Biology of the Gene" is better written and more in-depth than Voet & Voet in the limited subject of gene expression, but, that hardly diminishes the V&V accomplishment. It's like this;- if you expect to really use your knowledge of biochemistry, you need to include a reading of V&V. Otherwise, Stryer is much easier. This is exactly what I was told by working biochemists, and, I am passing this advice on to you, the potential reader of this book.

I bought this book for a graduate level biochem class. However after spending a couple of months with this book I hardly use it. The diagrams and tables are excellent, but the way the text is written is horrible. Most of my biochem professors do not like the book for that reason (we use it here because one of our professors was an author). Some might tell you that because it is a graduate level text it is supposed to be hard to understand, that is hog wash. I don't recommend buying this book unless you have to, there are much better selections out there.

I used this textbook as the primary book for my graduate level biochem class. Its a very tough read sometimes because of the amount of information packed into each page but all in all it is very well written and more than worth the money.

This WOULD be a great edition of Voet and Voet. Unfortunately this book is riddled with missing pages! I've only had the book for a few weeks now, and I've already noticed that there are at least 30 pages missing (Chapter 10 is completely GONE).
I don't know if this just a bad copy, but I just wanted to warn whomever decides to purchase this book. I would stick to the second edition, its perfectly fine unless you really need a recently published biochem book.