A chemistry grad student's take on this very important matter (well, probably not that important, but pretty interesting).

Art has been using our glove-box to do some weird organic radical chemistry, so our group has been seeing more of him.  However, he did not share with us the news that he is now a bona-fide author.

http://www.chem.umd.edu/News/index.php?contentid=102

In fact, the department shared that news with me.  This is probably not surprising, seeing as Art told me he wants to go into Academia, so what better way to tell a prospective department you are into teaching than by saying on your CV that you wrote an "Organic I for Dummies" book.  Also, his long five year stay in the Falvey group can be explained by him being busy writing the book (cheap shot, but I am a little envious).

Now, have I read the book to tell you anything of substance about it?  No.  I know organic chem, but I first heard about it today and I'm not into spending 14 bucks on it on Amazon.  However, since I might be teaching this summer, I'll see if the author will give me a free copy to evaluate (and recommend to my students) if I find it up to my high and exacting standards. 

Well, probably my standards are sort of average I guess; I'm not really sure on that point.  But that's why Amazon has reviews.  According to Amazon readers, the book is pretty damn good (unless it's Art writing all those reviews under different pseudonyms).  One of the reviews is from a top 50 reviewer and it gives it a 4 out of five.  On average, the reviews are 4.5 stars out of five, with the most enthusiastic ones coming in from orgo students who have enough grammatical mistakes and syntax errors in their reviews for me to assume that it was probably not Art who shadow-wrote all those reviews, unless he is very clever and sneaky.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/customer-reviews/0764569023/ref=cm_rev_prev/104-9296420-7836708?ie=UTF8&customer-reviews.sort%5Fby=-SubmissionDate&n=283155&s=books&customer-reviews.start=1

The Amazon web site also lets me read a five page excerpt from the introduction to the book. 

http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0764569023/ref=sib_dp_pt/104-9296420-7836708#reader-link

It's really good actually.  And it reminds me of the kind of book that I would read as a kid that would get me interested in astronomy or biology by providing interesting examples and explaining some common terms from that field that would give me a glimpse inside the subject and urge me to read further.  Now, this is probably just for Orgo I students though, so it won't go too much into the 'wonderful world of chemistry'.  But maybe Art will write something more general in the future.  Especially, if those royalties add up to a nice profit... 

Of course, he'll have to do a better job!  What, with saying Organic Chemistry is 'tyrannical' and 'brutish' in the first paragraph!  Please...  It was Brutus who called Caesar a tyrant who should be killed for the future of the Roman Republic.  Thus, clearly, the two words should not be associated.

Okay, so I've got nothing.  Except some envy.  At least I have this blog to write in.  Dammit.