Biology Demystified (TAB Demystified)

Rating:
Summary: very well written and easy to follow
Review: Excellent book! I found it to be very easy to follow. The author really has a grasp on the subject matter and presents it so clearly. I would definitely recommend this book for any level of student be it high school or college. This book is far superior to any major text that can be very dry and boring. The author makes learning fun.

Rating:
Summary: The idea of biological order versus disorder
Review: This author very successfully carries through the idea that some parts of Biology reflect Biological Order (recognizable patterns), while others reflect the exact opposite - - Biological Disorder (breaking or absence of recognizable patterns). He does this for both the individual living thing (using a giraffe with spots on the one hand, a dead giraffe with out its spots on the other), and for the environment (an intact spider web on the one hand, a broken spider web and dead spider on the other). Quite often, Biological Order means a healthy individual and "fit" environment, while Biological Disorder suggests an unhealthy individual and "unfit" environment. This two-way system of classification helps the reader associate certain key facts with particular types of symbols. This is a valuable and proven educational strategy for increasing the retention of facts and promoting long-lasting memory.

Rating:
Summary: Suffers from poor illustrations
Review: This is an OK book, but it suffers from inadequate illustrations. Many more illustrations would have been very helpful, especially for an introductory book such as this. The illustrations the book does have are amateurish line drawings, which often do not even shed much light on the concepts.

In most cases, the text itself is pretty clear and readable. The style is informal and even entertaining. But in some parts, I had difficulty understanding what was being said. I think this problem would have been largely solved with more and better illustrations.

On the plus side, the book goes out of its way to explain the etymology (word origins) of words. This book was a big help to me in this respect. For example, knowing that adrenal means "toward" (ad-) the top of the "kidney" (renal) is a help in remembering and understanding this term. This is a significant thing, because biology has tons of technical terms, and it can be hard to remember them all. However, sometimes the way this book integrates the word roots into the sentence could be very confusing to someone who did not realize what the author was doing.

The book uses special symbols in the margins for biological Order and Disorder. However, I never saw the point of this. Why is it important to know that something leads to order or disorder? The book seems to think it is very important, but never adequately explained why this is so.

This is an overview, not an in-depth book. It is probably best suited for people who had a general biology class in high school or college, and now want a short refresher course. It is also much cheaper than most textbooks. The writing style seems more geared toward middle school or high school readers, but it would be a poor book for such readers, who are learning the concepts for the first time.

Overall, because of its lack of good illustrations, I would not recommend this book. There must be better books out there. I bought this book on impulse at the bookstore, without first checking the reviews on Amazon. I paid the penalty for my impatience and laziness, and got this mediocre book instead of a great book.

If you want a more in-depth introduction to general biology, I recommend Biology, 6th edition, by Campbell, ISBN: 0805366245. It is not as easy to read, because the information is densely packed. And it costs much more. But the explanations are clear and the illustrations are simply excellent. This is a very, very good textbook.