Reviews for Biology Concepts and Applications

The average rating for Biology Concepts and Applications based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2012-06-01 00:00:00 Robert Rzymowski This is the book that got me to the semifinals of the USA Biology Olympiad. That I did not progress further is user error; the authors of this superb text certainly held up their part of the bargain. As a textbook, it gets 5 stars. This isn't just a biology textbook, it's the biology textbook - I can see how it has achieved its reputation. It can double as exercise equipment, is part encyclopedia, and is over 1300 pages, but it still manages to feel concise and approachable. The authors/editors were also somehow able to achieve a remarkable consistency of style - it feels like a single person wrote the entirety of this massive tome. The style itself is lucid, engaging, and, most of all, intelligent; the authors clearly care about linguistic precision, something which many scientific types seem to neglect. (See MIT's freshman composition course.) In fairness, I have noticed that biologists' writing skills seem to be generally superior to those of scientists of other disciplines. Anectodal evidence may be statistically insignificant, but I know what I've observed. I'm giving it 4 stars because I reserve my 5-star ratings for undisputed, canonical classics of world science and literature. Biology is not such a book, but neither could it be. What is it? A splendidly written, encyclopedic, definitive, and even enjoyable introductory textbook which gave me an outstanding education in the essentials of the life sciences. I will return to it often.

Review # 2 was written on 2017-07-02 00:00:00 Wayne Downey One of the best biology textbooks, reading through it is very easy and the language is pretty simple, I studied this in my first year of university and now years later I'm going back to it for some basics. I highly recommend it.