(Part 2) Best products from r/chemistry

Personally I make a distinction between scripting and programming that doesn't really exist but highlights the differences I guess. I consider myself to be scripting if I am connecting programs together by manipulating input and output data. There is lots of regular expression pain and trial-and-error involved in this and I have hated it since my first day of research when I had to write a perl script to extract the energies from thousands of gaussian runs. I appreciate it, but I despise it in equal measure. Programming I love, and I consider this to be implementing a solution to a physical problem in a stricter language and trying to optimise the solution. I've done a lot of this in fortran and java (I much prefer java after a steep learning curve from procedural to OOP). I love the initial math and understanding, the planning, the implementing and seeing the results. Debugging is as much of a pain as scripting, but I've found the more code I write the less stupid mistakes I make and I know what to look for given certain error messages. If I could just do scientific programming I would, but sadly that's not realistic. When you get to do it it's great though.

The maths for comp chem is very similar to the maths used by all the physical sciences and engineering. My go to reference is Arfken but there are others out there. The table of contents at least will give you a good idea of appropriate topics. Your university library will definitely have a selection of lower-level books with more detail that you can build from. I find for learning maths it's best to get every book available and decide which one suits you best. It can be very personal and when you find a book by someone who thinks about the concepts similarly to you it is so much easier.
For learning programming, there are usually tutorials online that will suffice. I have used O'Reilly books with good results. I'd recommend that you follow the tutorials as if you need all of the functionality, even when you know you won't. Otherwise you get holes in your knowledge that can be hard to close later on. It is good supplementary exercise to find a method in a comp chem book, then try to implement it (using google when you get stuck). My favourite algorithms book is Numerical Recipes - there are older fortran versions out there too. It contains a huge amount of detailed practical information and is geared directly at computational science. It has good explanations of math concepts too.

For the actual chemistry, I learned a lot from Jensen's book and Leach's book. I have heard good things about this one too, but I think it's more advanced. For Quantum, there is always Szabo & Ostlund which has code you can refer to, as well as Levine. I am slightly divorced from the QM side of things so I don't have many other recommendations in that area. For statistical mechanics it starts and ends with McQuarrie for me. I have not had to understand much of it in my career so far though. I can also recommend the Oxford Primers series. They're cheap and make solid introductions/refreshers. I saw in another comment you are interested potentially in enzymology. If so, you could try Warshel's book which has more code and implementation exercises but is as difficult as the man himself.

Jensen comes closest to a detailed, general introduction from the books I've spent time with. Maybe focus on that first. I could go on for pages and pages about how I'd approach learning if I was back at undergrad so feel free to ask if you have any more questions.



Out of curiosity, is it DLPOLY that's irritating you so much?

Learning programming is good. C++ is always a good language to know (and you more or less get C as a bonus) Structured/Object-Oriented programming languages are all fairly similar (and constitute all the most used ones) Basically it's more important to learn to program than which language, as learning another language is relatively easy once you understand the concepts well. In this day and age, knowing programming is good for anyone in science, anyhow. Some basic course on numerical methods (i.e. solving math problems on computers) would be a good idea too.

As it were, a lot of stuff is still written in Fortran though (in particular in QC), which is rather ancient as far as programming languages go. But it's probably better to learn a modern language before learning Fortran (which, compared to C++ is mostly a subset, akin to C).

Jensen's book (which cyrus linked to) is a pretty good introductory overview of the field. Levine's "Quantum chemistry" is introductory and still relatively broad, but a bit more in-depth book on QC in particular. I'm also partial to Piela's book, which I like for being rather conceptual and descriptive rather than formula-laden. Koch's DFT book is a good one on DFT in particular. Parr and Yang is the polar opposite - very mathematical, but something of a 'bible' for anyone who wants to get into the actual method development side of stuff, although not for the faint-hearted. Szabo and Ostlund is still popular, but IMO dated and not as useful as newer books. It's also relatively mathematical. Helgaker's tome, a more advanced book, is one of few that actually goes into some detail about the computational methods used. (With QC, you could read most of the books above and still be fairly clueless about how to actually write a program to do anything other than the most basic Hartree-Fock calculation)

Although pricey, I liked McQuarrie's book on thermodynamics a lot. It's all you'd need in that area to get you from undergrad to grad level.

If you intend to go into the QC side of theo-chem, learning as much math and quantum as possible is recommended. (although relativistic quantum mech and QFT would be strictly voluntary) How much you'll need depends on what you want to do though; MM/MD methods are theoretically/mathematically a lot simpler than QC methods, and if you're more into 'applied' QC rather than method development, there's less need to know about the fine details, too. But it's good to keep your options open, and lacking the necessary maths skills is certainly a barrier-to-entry for theochem. In particular for those from chemistry backgrounds, who typically have studied less math.

(I was a chemistry undergrad, but I took all the physics students' maths courses. So I can attest to both having had use of most of it, and that it certainly helped me get into grad school.)

As /u/AstraGlacialia said, most particles have to be smaller than 1 micron before brownian motion overpowers gravity and keeps well-dispersed particles suspended.

In your case, you will have to either

1. Thicken the aqueous phase (like /u/LunaLucia2 suggests) in order to slow the descent of the teflon particles. This can usually be done with a water-soluble polymer such as Xanthan Gum or gellan gum. (Xanthan gum is available as a 'thickening powder' at most grocery stores. It's popular for gluten-free baking.) Most polymers will get you a pseudoplastic rheology that will settle out over a long time, but sometimes that's all you need. There are different options for different rheologies; carbomers and clays like laponite are really effective at building yield which will let your suspension stay more permanent without building a lot of viscosity in the higher-shear ranges that are important to pouring and leveling. Some might be harder to find, but you can definitely find xanthan and gellan gum, carbomers, and some cellulose ethers on Amazon.
   
   Or
   
   
2. Build an associative structure by partially flocculating the suspension. If your particle surface is ionizable (teflon might need an ionic surfactant/polyelectrolyte for that to happen) you can monkey around with the zeta potential by changing the pH of the particle, adding a tiny amount of salt, or adding some high molecular weight polymers like HEC that can induce depletion flocculation for concentrated suspensions.
   
   If you want to dive deeper down the colloidal rabbit hole, I suggest "Dispersion of Powders in Liquids and Stabilization of Suspensions" by Tharwat Tadros. ([Here is a sample.] (https://application.wiley-vch.de/books/sample/3527329412_c01.pdf))
   
   ^^^You ^^^can ^^^get ^^^this ^^^book ^^^for ^^^free ^^^if ^^^you ^^^know ^^^where ^^^to ^^^look.
   
   He has a bunch of other titles that are great for dispersion chemistry, like "Formulation of disperse systems".
   
   

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1439860971

I'd recommend buying and reading this book as it covers most of the basic as well as slightly niche techniques you will need during your time in a synthetic lab. This is particularly useful for learning how to set up efficient columns (how polar a solvent system to use, and how much silica to use for a given mass of crude material).

Specifically regarding yields, TLC is a great tool, both to check if a reaction has gone to completion (limiting reagent starting material present will inhibit yields) but also when using a separating funnel (say you are extracting into an organic solvent, you can TLC the organic layer after 4 extractions and if there is no product observed, then you know you won't have any material left in your aqueous layer).

It's always best to do reactions under nitrogen, and always make sure to use dry solvents (from a still or solvent purification system) when using moisture sensitive reagents e.g. NaH.

There are many other tips but they are reaction specific, but I will say the more time you spend in the lab, your yields will naturally increase as your skills improve (as long as the reaction allows it). Good luck!

Well I posted this in another thread, but here you go.

Greenwood and Earnshaw Chemistry of the elements - This is pretty much prefect for main group chemistry.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Chemistry-Elements-N-N-Greenwood/dp/0750633654/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1345966730&sr=8-1

Atkins Physical - This is okay and pretty useful as it is full of questions. There's a smaller version called 'Elements of Physical Chemistry'
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Atkins-Physical-Chemistry-Peter/dp/0199543372/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345966803&sr=1-1

Clayden Organic Chemistry - A very good guide to organic chemistry, however the lack of questions in the new edition is a bit annoying.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Chemistry-Jonathan-Clayden/dp/0199270295/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345967204&sr=1-2

Hartwig Organotransitional Metal Chemistry - Very good but goes a little beyond most chemistry degrees if not focussing on organometallic chemistry.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Organotransition-Metal-Chemistry-Bonding-Catalysis/dp/189138953X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1345967182&sr=1-1

For cheap and detailed books on a very specific subject the Oxford Chemistry Primers are extremely useful.
http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_noss_1?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=oxford+chemistry+primers&x=0&y=0

Basically, all sorts of things happen because the atoms, molecules, or whatever, want to be stable, i.e to achieve lowest energy. Forming ions, i.e. removing or adding electrons to the atom, is a way for atoms to achieve lowest energy (stable).

The spdf orbitals do come into play. An atom's electronic configuration can be described with its shells, orbitals, and the number of electrons in the orbitals. For example, iron's configuration is 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 3d^6 4s^2 . The electrons has another property, its spin. Spin is an intrinsic form of angular momentum, thus carries energy. Electron can spin two way (that is the up and down arrow you see in orbitals). Pauli exclusion principle says that there cannot be two electrons in a single orbital that have the same spin (since the momemtum is the same direction, it will add up and increase energy). For the similar reason, the pairings of all electrons in a degenerate orbital (i.e. 2p, 3p, 3d, etc. orbitals with the same energy) decreases the energy (cancelled out spins in a way). However, the pairing of electron also increases energy because it decreases the distance between electrons. So, the degenerate orbitals is more stable when it is half filled or fully filled (the latter is more stable). The orbital can be more stable: just don't have the orbital. The energy of an atom is lowered when a specific set of degenerate atomic orbitals is empty, fully filled, or half filled.

Now consider the iron atom again. When it ionizes, it will want to be mroe stable. An obvious option is to take off 4s orbital entirely, losing 2 electrons, thus creating Fe^2+ . Now the ion's configuration is 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 3d^6 . To become more stable, we can make 3d orbitals (take ten electrons at most) half-filled to 1s^2 2s^2 2p^6 3s^2 3p^6 3d^5 . Compared to the neutral atom, the ion loses three electrons, making it Fe^3+ . But the energy difference between Fe^2+ and Fe^3+ is not that big. External energy and chemical environment can convert them to each other. For example, oxidizing agents, a category of chemicals that love to rob electrons from others, can make Fe^2+ become Fe^3+ by accepting an electron from Fe^2+ .

Are they structurally different? Yes, other than the configuration difference (I think it can count as structure), the atomic radius is different. Fe^3+ is smaller because it has fewer electrons obviously, meaning less repulision between them, and thus stronger attraction to the nucleus.

Textbooks include the one given in the sidebar by Oxtoby and Chang's one. You may be able to find these books in your local post-secondary library. The edition doesn't matter. Oxtoby is a little hard, but it is good for in depth explanation. Chang is great for AP and other high school studnets.

I would check out MIT OpenCourseWare. They have some pretty thorough entry-level college stuff, even though their chemistry is not as well developed as their math and physics. A really popular class they have on solid state chemistry: here.

If you're more of a book person, check out Oxtoby for general chemistry (linked on the right). If you're interested in learning about symmetry in chemistry, I would recommend this book. It's a pretty fun and simple introduction to group theory and its applications.

Also, I've been told the UC Davis ChemWiki is a pretty good resource, although I haven't really explored it myself.

Anything by Feynmann are great reads. For upper division instrumental analysis, spectroscopy, and quantum I wholly recommend QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter by Richard P. Feynman et al. It describes all the concepts in the book in layman's terms in a brilliant narrative of chemistry. I recommend it to anyone that wants to learn about the strangeness of physics and chemistry. It is easy to digest.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics, although pricey helped me survive physics (I have the paperbacks). It seems you can read the entirety online at that site.

If you choose to do a lot of organic chemistry laboratory work then Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry is a really great resource. It covers just about everything you need to know to be very competent and safe in the lab. I found a used copy of the second edition that has served me well. I don't know what has been updated in the third edition.

I agree with /u/lmo2th Pauling has written albeit old but definitive books on chemistry. Although it can be very difficult to read and knowledge of differential equations is required, Introduction to Quantum Mechanics with Applications to Chemistry by Linus Pauling et al. was the most succinct book on the nitty gritty math of QM I found.

I recently graduated with a B.S. in Chemistry, it was difficult, but I loved every minute I spent in the lab doing research and can't imagine doing anything else. Edit: QED and Feynmann Lectures are great reads for lower division classes. Save the second two for if you decide on chemistry.

It's not a light read. it covers the core fundamentals of electrochemistry including mass transport, diffusion, and migration of charge at electrode interfaces, as well as, practical application of electrochemical techniques which include but aren't limited to polarography, cyclic volametry and other sweep/step techniques. The book focuses on the mathematical derivations of many important benchmark equations like cotrell and rendall-sevich which are used extensively. the proofs can be a bit challenging to follow without a decent background in calculus (diff. eq. helps too) but even if the derivations are lost, the important equations still hold true.

if you're looking for an introductory text for redox couples using electrochemistry you might be better off consulting a sophomoric text like Brown; Chemistry: The Central Science - Chapter 20 or Atkins' - Physical Chemistry - Chapter 7 & 25

don't hold me to those chapters... they could have changed from edition to edition.

Classes to consider should include:

• Math: up through partial differential equations. Many undergraduate programs in chemistry are happy to let you stop after taking multivariate calculus. But to get into the meat of quantum, PDEs is suggested.
  
  
• Chemistry: As /u/Kalivha said, computational chemistry, spectroscopy, solid state, and statistical mechanics. I'd go a step further and add inorganic chemistry to the list. You'll get a good smattering of MO theory, crystal lattice theory, and the like.
  
  
• Physics: a more intense variety of quantum mechanics would be offered in the physics department, so do check into this if you are semi-serious.
  
  
• Good texts: McQuarrie is a gold standard. My personal favorite is Atkins and de Paula's Physical Chemistry. They go into - in some places, at least - absurd detail, which tends to help people. For inorganic, look into Miessler and Tarr's Inorganic Chemistry.
  
  Happy hunting!

Cotton's "Chemical Applications to Group Theory" is pretty much the basis for all undergraduate classes that teach group theory. It's expensive though, and probably not the first book you'll want to read on the subject.

I would recommend Bertolucci's "Symmetry and Spectroscopy". It has a lot of great info, and is only $15.

Some good online sources (not all notes are about group theory, so pick and choose what will help you):

http://ocw.mit.edu/courses/chemistry/5-04-principles-of-inorganic-chemistry-ii-fall-2008/lecture-notes/
http://chemistry.caltech.edu/courses/ch112/syllabus.html
Under "Symmetry in Chemistry"

You should also have a working knowledge of matrix algebra. If you want to look into the subject deeper, a good understanding of linear algebra will help.

Organic Chemistry by John McMurray is very very good if you haven't got it already, I had this before I got Clayden and I found it a little easier when starting off.

Also, if you feel like a challenge a great question book to get is: Designing Organic Synthesis by Stuart Warren. It's a question text book that teaches you how to break down large molecules into easily synthesizable subunits and is invaluble for any synthetic course.

I just want to second "General Chemistry" by Linus Pauling that /u/kslusherplantman suggested. It's a very readable classic that will do a lot for your understanding. Also, it's like 15 euros: http://www.amazon.de/General-Chemistry-Dover-Books/dp/0486656225/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1404581980&sr=8-1&keywords=general+chemistry+pauling


Personally I'm kinda ambivalent on the programming issue. It's useful to differing degrees depending on what you do. That said, unless you get into hardcore synthesis, it's probably going to come up at least a few times in a career. On the other hand, unless you get into computational chemistry, it's not going to come up all that much. If you really want to learn one to get ready, learn python. Most stuff you do will be data processing related outside of more serious computational work, and python should be more than up to any of those tasks. It's also generally marketable if you decide to study something else and easy enough to learn that you won't waste too much time if you don't end up ever using it.

Other than that? Just relax. Graduating from German secondary school (Gymnasium?) you're probably fine mathematically. The rest of it will come as you take your classes. It's great that you're enthusiastic, but right now you probably want to focus on the non-academic changes in your life so that you don't get overwhelmed on that front when school starts.

I just finished second semester O-Chem and my prof told me that I was one of her top students and that she expects me to ask her for a grad school letter. The key thing to Organic as a class is to keep up with the work. Don't procrastinate at all if you can help it. It is really the sort of course where you would not go wrong putting at least an hour a day of work in every single day whether that work be reading the chapter, doing problems, or doing a study group with friends.

So the real answer is consistently work on the material more or less all the time.

It really is not the hardest class I've ever taken nor the most deeply involved. It is a survey course with all the weaknesses that implies. There will be places where you would love to go into more depth, but can't because there is not enough time. It's simply a lot of information that you have to internalize in a small amount of time, not some fantastically difficult concepts that you have to break apart and derive every aspect of to see how people arrived at it.

Things that I have found helpful as review material and just being able to use an alternate source for the same stuff that is in the Solomons book?

• Pushing Electrons
  
• Organic Chemistry as a Second Language
  
• Khan Academy Organic videos
  
• Open Courseware notes from all over
  
  and of course once you are in the second semester or over the summer and you need to take the ACS organic exam as your final it is useful to work through the problems in the ACS exam prep book that they put out. What you learn in class should really go beyond the scope of that material, but the more you practice the better you'll feel about it.

I haven't read that one but I do have On Food and Cooking. I got it for my girlfriend who is a chem grad student and loves to cook. It's a really excellent reference book.

This book is excellent - great examples, clearly written and good progression.

Once you get to more advanced level, I would recommend supplementing with a copy of March -this is much more of a reference text than a book you would read, but very comprehensive http://www.amazon.com/Marchs-Advanced-Organic-Chemistry-Mechanisms/dp/0471585890

http://www.amazon.com/Symmetry-Spectroscopy-Introduction-Vibrational-Electronic/dp/048666144X

This book does a great job explaining the methods for predicting active vibrations in IR and also has great stuff on electronic absorption spectroscopy.

Ken Dill has the easiest to follow stat mech book I have encountered. McQuarrie has lots of good problems to work through. David Chandler is the shortest, and simultaneously most brilliant and difficult work on the subject I have read. His brief review of thermodynamics in the first couple chapters is fantastic if you only have a day or two to get back on the horse.

https://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Spoon-Madness-Periodic-Elements/dp/0316051632 has every thing you listed in a single book. It is a fantastic read that covers the usage of elements and stories of their discoveries and the scientists behind them. I love it and going to finish it while overseeing exams in the coming weeks.

A good upper-level undergraduate textbook with plenty of practice problems is Symmetry and Spectroscopy: An Introduction to Vibrational and Electronic Spectroscopy by Daniel C. Harris and Michael D. Bertolucci. This book is pretty thorough in its explanations, so if you work through it start to finish, it may help you better grasp some areas that are currently not clear.

Don't be put off with the general chemistry concepts. While they can be interesting, I found chemistry extremely boring until I started learning organic chemistry. Try and mix in some of the early organic videos once you have a good feel for how atoms can come together to form molecules. There is a lot of general concepts to learn but they are important.


Also I hear that Linus Pauling's book is a good place to start if your not going the traditional way.

Highly recommend this workbook: http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Electrons-Students-Organic-Chemistry/dp/0030206936

I started going through it a little before class started (it was actually one of the required texts). Get your head around drawing structures and working mechanisms, and you'll be in great shape.

First of all, I loved Harris's book.

Secondly, take a look at Skoog, Holler and Crouch's Principles of Instrumental Analysis.

Tip: It's not worth buying at its current price ($258). It should be available in good condition in your department's library.

> https://www.amazon.ca/Chemistry-Raymond-Chang/dp/0073402680

I think this is the book that my coworker gave to me! glad to know that this book is a good source to turn to!

Also this one is pretty nice since you can work through it from the beginning to the end and afterwards you'll understand retrosynthesis.

You can find pdfs of it on the internet.

For pleasure:

• The Disappearing Spoon
  
• Periodic Tales
  
• Stuff Matters
  
• Molecules of Murder
  
• The Elements of Murder
  
• The Elements
  
• Molecules
  
• Molecules that Changed the World
  
• The Chemistry Book
  
  Undergraduate
  
  
• Organic:
  Organic Chemistry as a Second Language, The art of writing reasonable organic reaction mechanisms
  
  
• Inorganic: Inorganic Chemistry, Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory
  
  
• Analytical: Principles of Instrumental Anlsysis, Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry
  
  Graduate
  
  
• Organic: Advanced Practical Organic Chemistry, March's Advanced Organic Chemistry, Greene's Protective Groups in Organic Synthesis, Purification of Laboratory Chemicals, Strategic Applications of Named Reactions in Organic Synthesis
  
• Inorganic: Advanced Inorganic Chemistry

Cathedrals of Science: The Personalities and Rivalries That Made Modern Chemistry

Great history of major events that took place during the prior century.

https://www.amazon.com/Cathedrals-Science-Personalities-Rivalries-Chemistry/dp/0195321340/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1538777221&sr=8-1&keywords=cathedrals+of+science

Here is the best book for learning the basics of reaction mechanisms: Pushing Electrons

The Disappearing Spoon. I absolutely loved reading it.

http://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Spoon-Madness-Periodic-Elements/dp/0316051640

You're not clear about what you want to learn in chemistry -- do you want to do more practical stuff (organic synthesis / physical chemistry) or do you just want to know how molecules/atoms behave (organic chemistry ,biochemistry, physical chemistry , quantummechanics?

Wrt to doing synthesis 'on your own': these days, doing chemistry outside a lab is seen as something 'very dangerous', because only trrrrists and clandestine drug-making chemists are interested in chemistry.

On Food and Cooking

This is probably your best bet to understanding what is going on when you cook. There are food chemistry textbooks out there but they can be pricey and you may need a significant chemistry background to understand them.

I am a big fan of this book and recommend it to students.

https://www.amazon.com/Writing-Reasonable-Organic-Reaction-Mechanisms/dp/0387954686

There's Crash Course chemistry (YT channel). Great way to start in my opinion. I'd say watch that before moving to Khan academy. Then, if you're really serious: https://www.amazon.ca/Chemistry-Raymond-Chang/dp/0073402680 .

I learned with this book, turned out good.

None exist. But if you must, Cotton's book is obviously top notch.
Alternatively, one taught from a math perspective might be good.

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Applications-Group-Theory-3rd/dp/0471510947

Two good books to have would be:

For Organic: March's.

For Inorganic: Cotton and Wilkinson.

The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms by Grossman.

Organic Chemistry: An Intermediate Text by Hoffman is also good as a text between what you learned in undergrad and things you might expect to see in grad school.

Cotton's Chemical Applications of Group Theory is a decent resource.

In short, the symmetry of a state is the direct product of the irreducible representations of all of the orbitals occupied in that state. A full orbital only contributes the totally symmetric representation because the direct product of any irreducible representation with itself is the totally symmetric rep. Because of that fact, you only have to really take the direct product of the partially full orbitals to determine the symmetry of a state.

This web page also has some useful information about the octahedral group, including the product tables.

Trying buying it and supporting the author http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Electrons-Students-Organic-Chemistry/dp/0030206936

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Organic-Synthesis-Disconnection-Stuart-Warren/dp/0470712368

I think this is the one I have, it's definitely by Warren anyway.

Edit:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Designing-Organic-Syntheses-Programmed-Introduction/dp/0471996122

This is the one I have, you might have to shop around to find it a bit cheaper. I think I ended up with the Indian edition or something.

I've always found Atkins' Physical Chemistry to be fairly decent - and QM is one of his stronger areas.

A great book I used to start out was 'Molecular Symmetry and Group Theory' by Alan Vincent. It goes through a lot of the symmetry operations but eventually gets to their interpretation in the character tables.

I took a grad course on the history of chemistry and we used The Development of Modern Chemistry by Ihde.
Another comprehensive (but style-wise a little hard to read) is
Crucibles:The Story of Chemistry from Ancient Alchemy to Nuclear Fission.

I have yet to read The Disappearing Spoon, a pop-sci read on the history and stories behind discoveries of elements.

I'd recommend Zumdahl's Chemistry (http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Steven-S-Zumdahl/dp/061852844X/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409839212&sr=1-2&keywords=zumdahl) as a good introductory text. It's relatively straightforward for someone approaching the subject outside of class.

I'd ask you to remember also, Chemistry is a messy subject, it just isn't as concise as mathematics by nature. If the text isn't to your taste it is probably a reflection on the haphazard nature of the subject, not the author.

That said, if you want the original gangster, old school text, Pauling's Chemistry is the die that all modern chem texts have been cast from, and it's cheap, printed by Dover in their classic style (http://www.amazon.com/General-Chemistry-Dover-Books/dp/0486656225/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1409839362&sr=1-1&keywords=pauling+chemistry)

I taught myself general chemistry in high school using Pauling's General Chemistry text. It's a whopping $11.52 on Amazon right now.

There is an electronic version on iTunes for $20, if your students would prefer that.

Have a look at this book.

This

http://www.amazon.com/Organic-Chem-Lab-Survival-Manual/dp/0470494379/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322973072&sr=1-1

and this

http://www.amazon.com/Pushing-Electrons-Students-Organic-Chemistry/dp/0030206936/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1322973131&sr=1-1

to supplement Morrison & Boyd or Brown, Foote, & Iverson.

Those are the full names
Here are links
Zumdahl:
http://www.amazon.com/Chemistry-Steven-S-Zumdahl/dp/061852844X/ref=la_B001ILMCPG_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1406049265&sr=1-2
Chang:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0073402680?pc_redir=1405946005&robot_redir=1
Buy them used and you don't need the latest edition (This saves a lot of money)

This book was a life-saver when I was in grad school doing total synthesis

http://www.amazon.com/Advanced-Practical-Organic-Chemistry-Edition/dp/1439860971

On Food and Cooking: The Science and Lore of the Kitchen –
by Harold McGee

is the bible.

Also Modernist Cuisine

http://www.amazon.com/On-Food-Cooking-Science-Kitchen/dp/0684800012

I dont find "invisible Spoon" is maybe The Disappearing Spoon ( http://www.amazon.com/The-Disappearing-Spoon-Periodic-Elements/dp/0316051632 ) ?

The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms is a must read for any synthetic in the field.

Here is a couple, the first two are Pop-sci and may be more of what you are looking for. The third is probably the most dense.

​

https://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Spoon-Madness-Periodic-Elements/dp/0316051632

http://home.theodoregray.com/bookproducts/the-elements-autographed-copy

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Tree-History-Chemistry-Science/dp/0393320685/ref=sr_1_16?keywords=chemistry+history&qid=1574340632&sr=8-16

You could look into The Disappearing Spoon. This series of blog articles will give a bit of a preview of how the book reads.

There's a book titled "Chemical Applications of Group Theory"

https://www.amazon.com/Chemical-Applications-Group-Theory-3rd/dp/0471510947

The Art of Writing Reasonable Organic Reaction Mechanisms by Robert Grossman (Kentucky).

Sorry Skoog A chem book. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0495012017?pc_redir=1412086803&robot_redir=1