Essentials of Introductory Chemistry Book

This review is for Principles of Modern Chemistry, 6th ed. by Oxtoby, Campion & Gillis. (A webpage for this edition does not exist - although, incidentally, one for the solution manual does.)

This book presents itself as a general chemistry text - which it is, for the most part - but not one I would recommend to someone who is learning chemistry for the first time. In fact, I would only recommend this text to someone who is specifically interested in physical chemistry and developing the foundation to learn more.

The first third of the book, for instance, is a moderately difficult, yet somewhat superficial, introduction to quantum mechanics. The chapters progress in a microscopic-to-macroscopic format, an understandable strategy, but one that runs the risk of intimidating readers with highly inelegant math and counterintuitive concepts. (The latter chapters are much easier.)

I also felt this book was a tad verbose. The page dimensions are not small, the font is not large, and it still takes 900 pages to explain chemistry - which may seem like a standard length to some, but, I assure you, it could have been more concise. (Compare to Griffith's vastly more thorough introduction to QM in 400 pages.)