Customer Reviews

Molecular and Cellular Biology

5 star:		(1)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I used this book in freshman biology, a course that is required for students in many different majors at my school. I am a chem major, and luckily in highschool had good preparation in molecular biology. That is the only reason I could even read the words in this book. Many of my friends had never taken biology and absolutely hated this book. Its used alot of technical jargon that unless you've taken previous courses, you won't understand. While I wouldn't say that I hated it, its definately not an easy read. Its a very technical book and is not appropriate for students who have never been exposed to molecular biology. I must admit that I found it very dense and hard to read. It gave me headaches to try and understand all the material becasue it was just so dense. Probably a great book for an upper level course (I can't even say if this is true, becasue I never looked at the book again after freshman bio) but avoid it at all costs if you are a freshman or sophomore with no prior training in biology.

This book is very well organized, and it covers basic information of the topics very well. At the same time, it also provids a deeper information for beginner in this area. I would say this book is good for beginner and as a reference book. I got this book a few years back; however, it is still a very important reference book for me.

This older book shows the coherent organization that is the hallmark of one disciplined mind. Although recent editions of Alberts et al and Lodish et al are more up to date, the writing here is more consistent than those committee-written books, and is organized in terms of questions one would naturally ask. Typically I find this a better introduction to topics in cell biology, which hasn't changed as dramatically as genomics over the past 15 years, since this book was written.