Customer Reviews

Name Reactions and Reagents in Organic Synthesis

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

 

 

Tetris move over Mundy's got a new game. How do you make science fun? You make a game of it. This is exactly what we do in our lab, we use this book as a game. We open up to a random page to see if there is an error, and most times (the guy shouting behind is saying every time) we are not dissapointed. This book is useful in that it has contemporary examples, where March does not, however, the number of errors makes this book useless for somebody who is trying to learn the material for the first time. Zero stars for accuracy, five stars for entertainment.

Here is the Gauntlet!!!

Page 425 (meta photoaddition) TL 44 2011. product- wrong structure

Page 365 (Knoevenagel condensation)TL,45, 3999. Ugi-Knoevenagel Rxn starting material aniline derivative does not have a NITROGEN.

Page 428 (Michael addition) JACS, 125, 15837. Not a Dicobalt product. It is a ester. Page 429 Robinson annulation Not a Michael addition

Page 487 (pauson-khand)OL, 5,3491. SM is an allene so the product is missing an alkene in the seven membered ring.

Page 176 (Corey-Fuchs reaction) Seyferth protocol: reasonance structures are wrong. They are missing a hydrogen atom. Thus the rest of the mechanism is wrong.

Page 235 (Evans chiral Auxillaries) Typos of Me and Et

Page 44 (Arndt-Eistert homologation) It is supposed to be a carbene so why is there two lone pairs. The Kowalski Ester Homologation: Should be LiCHBr2 not LiCHBR2 and after the rxn arrow the addition component should be CHBr2 addition not CH2Br.

Page 459 (Nenitzescu indole synthesis) If it is a indole synthesis they all should have indole products. One product is drawn as an indene. Also in the solid phase example the intermediate is wrong. The solid phase linker is connected to the amide not the aromatic ring.

Page 47 (Aza-cope) It's supposed to be formic acid quenching the rxn not peroxyformic acid.

Page 445 (Myers-Saito cyclization) Jacs 118, 10783. Starting material has 17 carbons - product has 18 carbons. One of them is wrong

peace

craig stamp

I bought this book as required for my organic synthesis course. I am dissapointed with how little detail is given for each mechanism. Also the examples given are also very difficult to work out and no solution is given for each example.

March's book is a tome, so I'm not sure how you could not use most of the same kinds of reactions that March uses. March's book is comprehensive, but Mundy and Ellerd's book is not bad because it is not comprehensive. It is what it says it is- a complilation of name reactions. It doesn't go into as much detail as March does, but it puts the name reactions in a nice format, and that's just fine and dandy if that's how you're trying to go about things. They put the name reactions in alphabetical order, give a generic reaction, a mechanism, and many examples of that kind of reaction.

This book simply lists the reactions from Jerry Marchs' book(which the authors reference constantly!) in a different order.

Mundy's book is very useful. It does list the many name reactions and their mechanisms. It has more examples of the use of those reactions and literature citations than Jie Jack Li's Name Reactions: A Collection of Detailed Reaction Mechanisms. However, it is very limited and not very detailed when compared to Kurti's and Czako's Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis, in my opinion, the best book of this kind available.

However, there is one factor that keeps Mundy's book close to my hands: the name reagents section. In this section, the name reagents are shown with common names and the reactions that are most associated with those reagents. The mechanisms for those reactions is also shown. I find this is very useful.

It you intend to buy only name reactions book, I can't recommend this one be it. But, if you intend to get two, I think this one will find its uses.

When I wrote an editorial review for Mundy's book I really thought it was the best one on the market. At about the same time "Strategic Applications of named reactions in organic synthesis" by Kurti and Czako (forward by Corey and Intro by Nicolaou) came out, and that book is AWESOME. Go check it out. We even use it as a text book in upper division organic synthesis courses.

It is good, with lot of examples and references. However, I did find some of the reactions and reagents have been ommitted. besides there is very little explanations for certain reaction mechanisms. But I would recommend this book to all synthetic organic chemists.