No good, stick to your textbook!
935051
The examples are from a different planet! The text is very general in the important concepts and too detailed in the obscure stuff; this is definintley not intended for someone new to PCHEM. Stick to you textbook, like Atkins, which probably has better explanations and problems.
4028720
So this book was used for my sophomore year digital circuit class, and I thought the class was brutal.  It had nothing to do with the actual difficulty of the class and had everything to do with this textbook (I'm not sure if this even qualifies as a textbook). This is not good to learn from and I would suggest getting another textbook unless your teacher assigns problems from this book (my professor hardly ever did).  One positive thing to note, as another reviewer did, is the book's usefulness as a reference.  So bottom line- if you need it or want a good reference buy it and if you don't then save your money.
1566788
I love Amazon but yuck, hated this textbook.  It was one of those "mandatory purchases" for a class.  Good thing I just rented it.
3842583
I studied this book as an undergraduate in my junior year. I find it important to mention that the CG course was one of the most enjoyable and motivating courses I have taken. Sadly though, this book was one of the worst I studied (or rather, dealt with) for a number of reasons. I found it to be (and my classmates agree!):

1. Disorganized:

the way it jumps from one topic to the other with no harmonization of ideas, added to that the lack of headings and titles.

2. Misleading and inconsistent:

example: when it explains the mechanism of the shadow-mask CRT, the illustration shows 3 electron guns, each producing an electron beam of a different color, which is not true at all. The color is determined by the mask not the beam. (and this is just one example)

3. Confusing:

when it explains several methods of doing something, it mentions the drawbacks of one method under the title of another method! Confusing and also irritating.

4. Incomplete information

we had to rely almost completely on our professor's lectures and ended up ignoring the book altogether!

It has some good qualities. For example: the appendix was a good reminder of most of the required linear algebra and calculus. The algorithms in the book are very clear.
777819
I can't get over how terrible this textbook is! The book is very unclear, and does nothing to help you understand the various concepts of the already confusing subject (it'll confuse you even more). I've spent hours looking through this shameful textbook, looking for things that could help me with my homework. I've found that looking for whatever it is that I need help with, via Google is by far more helpful. Luckily this is a rental, otherwise I'd burn it.
1619318
I agree with all those who rated this book below or equal to 2 stars.
I don't agree with the author.
His book is only good as a reference book for those who have mastered the contents( for example, the professors who have taught probability for their entire lives and take for granted that every line in the book is trivial. If it is indeed trivial, why bother to write a book! what is a textbook for?)
For my own experience, to follow this book, I have to read everything from Billingsley's textbook!
3753131
This must have been one of the worst textbooks i have read so far.

The biggest weakness is that there is little structure within the chapters.
The authors jump from one topic to the next and introduce new concepts where they are totally unnecessary and out of context. This makes the book hard to read and understand.
Example: The authors talk shortly about the definition of the "biopsychosocial" approach and then introduce studies and their findings relating to new concepts such as "fatalism", "self-efficacy" or "social-support".
Likewise they proceed throughout the book they start at point A and arrive at point XYZ.

Another point I don't like are the really artificial and forced transitions from one topic to another.
1272838
I am a professor of psychology and I've read a lot of textbooks, but this is one of the worst textbooks I have EVER seen. I selected it for use in my class because it looked well organized, it had some interesting features for students, and it had some good instructor resources.

Here are some of the reasons it's so awful. First of all, it is rife with technical errors (e.g., incorrect interpretation of a p-value, incorrect formula for standard deviation, calls "Cronbach's" alpha "coefficient" alpha, mistakenly referring to a correlational relationship as if one variable caused the other, etc.). Second, it isn't thorough. For instance, none of the figures are captioned and sometimes the reason for their inclusion is unclear. Third, the organization within each chapter is confusing. Sometimes there is no flow from one section to the next and it feels like some sections were just thrown in because they didn't know where else to address the topic. Finally, the organization at the macro level is odd. They introduce some concepts in early chapters and then unpack them in later chapters. There's nothing wrong with this approach in general (indeed, sometimes you need a foundation to build upon), but it doesn't feel foundational. Rather, it feels like when you teach from this text that you're just tacking on a bunch of material you forgot to mention earlier.

If you're thinking of adopting this text, save yourself!
4764004
This textbook was an absolute chore to work with. Information was poorly organized and formatted. The layout was difficult to navigate and information was dauntingly difficult to locate when endeavoring to review information and complete assignments. The glut of acronyms is frustrating. The choice in washed out colors for headings and subheadings made information even more difficult to locate. This book claims to make the reimbursement process easier for the average consumer to understand. Huh? Ummm...no! It muddled the concepts and principles to dizzying proportions and left me frustrated too often! Even after re-reading, it was difficult to extract information and understand concepts. It was like trying to learn translate gobbledygook. The text was glutted with details, some irrelevant, that made the basic concepts more difficult to locate and retain. Information was very poorly organized and scattered, like scarcely visible breadcrumbs through the monumental textual forest, which made learning and locating relevant information even more cumbersome and difficult! This text did NOT make this subject easier to understand! I often resorted to accompanying study materials, including printed power point notes that went with the text just to get help navigating through the text maze to find the relevant information. This text is a detail glutted, confusing and difficult to comprehend mess. I complained to my instructor. She said it's the only text available on the subject from AHIMA, so they were basically stuck with it, since there weren't any alternatives. I am so grateful I am finished with this class this semester! It has been one of the worst just because of being stuck with this text to navigate the subject. I cannot recommend it, but I doubt that matters since there don't seem to be any competing texts on the subject. AHIMA does not seem to produce texts that make some of this difficult subject matter easier to assimilate or understand for the entry level student. I would appreciate more intelligent texts that are better organized, arranged and formatted, with down to earth presentation, so that the average student can actually understand the material and concepts being presented. This text was an overwhelming and frustrating experience, with  out of reach and out of touch presentation of information. A basic (business) communication rule is to consider your audience and tailor the presentation of information to the audience and their level of understanding. This text does not do this. It seems to be tailored to HIM professionals already knowledgeable on the subject. This text was a disappointing chore.
4161007
Solid Mechanics is a difficult subject, so if you have a subpar teacher, you hope for a good textbook. Well, this book is definitely not it. It is beyond horrible. Not only is it hugely confusing, the questions are decisively more advanced than the examples given. It has over 500 pages, yet it feels worthless. In the second chapter alone I came across multiple instances of the answers on the back of the book being woefully wrong. It wouldnt be a stretch to state that a quarter of all exercises for each chapter had a wrong answer written at the back of the book. If your professor assigns this book as your text, the professor is definitely bad, and I suggest you get something else to supplement the gaping hole of information this book will leave you.
948928
i've about had it with this textbook. i've been teaching high school geometry for the past 12 years and i just don't understand why most high schools use this book. first off, the author does a terrible job of explaining new theorems and proofs, and cannot convey the concept to the student. i've had my students complain to me numerous times about how this book is unclear for exercises, and believe me, i teach some soon to be national merit scholars. the worst thing in this book is the fact that problems go on FOREVER. what i mean by this is that almost every problem has an a, b, c, d, e, and f to them. that means when i assign problems 1-11 odd for homework, it will take my students about 2 hours to do it. forget it, whoever will buy this textbook is simply out of their mind. instead, i like to teach geometry's theorems, postulates, proofs, and reasoning online at [...] or geometry the easy way, a terrific study guide.
The last thing i'd like to say is that there is some false information in this textbook. if you would take a look at chapter 14, transformations, it is stated on page 602 that an isometry is a conic mapping. that is absolutely false; the entire book is a joke. DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS TEXTBOOK, I REPEAT: DO NOT WASTE YOUR MONEY ON THIS LIE.
2512856
This book is terrible... I'm taking Biochemistry for a graduate program and our Professor uses this text as the foundation of the powerpoints for the lectures. It's basically a copy and paste. So if there is a concept which requires understanding, referencing the textbook doesn't help at all.

The biggest kick to the **** is the fact that our professor is smarter than the people who wrote this book (or so it seems) because he is CONSTANTLY pointing out errors in the textbook and correcting them in the powerpoints. Just about every chapter is littered with errors, typos, HORRIBLE GRAMMAR, and poorly depicting images. I just spent that past 10 minutes or so googling 2,3 Enoyl-CoA hydrase to see if it was a real enzyme. Our professor said it was wrong in the text and should be 2,3 Enoyl-CoA hydratase. I have no idea wtf it's supposed to be, but according to Dr. Google there's no such thing as 2,3 Enoyl-CoA hydrase.

Find a better text. I'm extremely disappointed with this. I'd expect a textbook to "enlighten" or "educate"... this does neither.
3051940
This text book is trying to do what a lot of modern text books are doing--look less like a text book and more like blobs of information that are fun to absorb. Unfortunately, it fails. This really is just another textbook and the author's poor attempts at humor are just annoying and waste your time. The only reason anyone would ever buy this book is because they have to for class. Alas, it IS the book required for my class...
4257995
An awful textbook. Many definitions are unclear and half-explained, and you'll still have problem with the exercises even after reading the chapters thoroughly. Also, where is the "applied" part? This book is a joke.
1303215
This was a required textbook for my database architecture class, and this is by far the worst textbook I have ever been forced to use. Good luck trying to find examples to the questions at the end of each chapter in this textbook, and be prepared to do a lot of researching and YouTube video watching instead. If this textbook isn't required material for a class, and you're not already familiar with the material - then I suggest you look elsewhere. Unless you don't mind spending hours on the Internet searching for decent examples, and/ or searching for YouTube videos.
2224101
Description says: "Acclaimed for its depth and breadth of coverage as well as for the authors' clear and often humorous writing style"

Seriously??? Talk about a "marketing job"!

This book is required by my research methods class and it is BY FAR the worst textbook I've ever used. The authors often resort to pages and pages or examples instead of simply defining the concept; other research books and websites define concepts in 3-5 sentences, not 3-5 pages of examples which never get to the point!

If these authors covered the natural sciences, they would need 10 pages to describe what the sun is: it's like a basket ball (round), it like fire (hot), it's like a light bulb (bright), its like a knife sticking you in the eye (will cause you to go blind), etc. Ever think of just defining what the sun is?! It doesn't take 10 pages: The sun is a sphere of gas which uses nuclear fusion to create heat and light.  This nonsense happens over and over and over. It's almost like the authors don't understand the concepts and need to resort to using examples; they consistently present simple concepts in an over complex manner.

I've had to resort to using Google to get an actual clear definition of what these authors are trying to explain.  And the exams based on this textbook? Forget it! At least 1/2 my class cohorts are complaining about the exams. Like the book, the questions are ambiguous, and often have several valid answers.

Stay away at all costs if you can!
1081136
This is a pathetic textbook.  The writing in it is awful, and sadly contributes to the stereotype that scientists do not know how to write.  It is foolish to always give conclusions before derivations.  It gives no motivation whatsoever for approaching certain questions nor the methods in which they are approached.  It moves in a very inconsistent manner, developing topics very much at random, most annoyingly fading in and out of discussion of electronic models (Drude, Sommerfeld, Boch, weak periodic, etc).  These models are at the core of the development of the field, and Kittel just kind of weaves in and out of random topics without bothering to explain why to describe things in such a manner (no discussion of why phonons are a good way to discuss system, no discussion of why we should obsess over k-space to describe every problem).  Ashcroft and Mermin, by comparison, is a fantastic textbook which I highly recommend.