Comments on: Textbooks for Africa

By: Joy Clancy

Joy Clancy — Sun, 27 Nov 2011 08:48:04 +0000

Dear Jon
Great idea.
I have just come back from Liberia which is emerging from a devastating war which finished in 2004. There are no school text books – the teacher dictates notes.
Is there a similar scheme for school chemistry text books. I see that the RSC is helping with curriculum development.

By: Jon

Jon — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:08:05 +0000

Thanks for the offer Danny, but we have no way of sending the books. If you have spare books that you’d like to see being put to good use, then I’m sure many university undergraduates in the UK would find them useful!

By: Danny Tuckwell

Danny Tuckwell — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 09:53:17 +0000

Hi,
I am a biochemist with some spare biochem books including methods books (which also containing review material). Would these be any use to you? I can give more details if required.
Danny

By: Heidi

Heidi — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 15:59:55 +0000

My husband has a bunch of science text books that he used in college, but doesn’t want to recycle. Do you know what we can do with the books or what organization would take them. We live in Pittsburgh, PA.

By: Anthony Hardwicke

Anthony Hardwicke — Thu, 28 May 2009 12:32:07 +0000

What about a competition for the best ever Chemistry textbook? We could have two categories: school and university.

My favourite school textbook is (unsurprisingly) the one that I used at school: Chemistry in Context by Graham Hill and John Holman. The school textbooks being published today are often tied in so closely to Exam Syllabuses and written in such a short space of time, that they end up looking like a nicely illustrated and slightly more detailed version of the Syllabus.

University textbooks are a different kettle of fish. This time I have no allegiance to the ones I read (or tried to read!) at university, namely Atkins, Cotton and Wilkinson, Greenwood and Earnshaw and March. Has anyone in the world read all four of these monsters cover-to-cover. One very good university textbook that I have read cover-to-cover is the American text ‘Braving the Elements’ by Gray, Simon and Trogler. It gets my vote in the university category.