Enrique Alvarez, Department of Modern Languages and Lingquistics
Cine y Guerra Civil Espanola: Imagenes para la memoria, by Magi de Crusells
I dedicate this book selection in memoriam to the Volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade. Deemed “the good fight” by the volunteers of the Abraham Lincoln Brigade who fought in Spain, the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) was a conflict about the defense of social justice, democracy and freedom. The outcome of this fratricidal war turned Spain into a fascist state which was to delay for over 40 years the bid towards political and social modernization put forward by the Spanish Republic in the 1930s. The acquisition of this book for the Florida State University Library serves to honor the memory of all the American volunteers who generously gave their lives fighting for freedom and democracy in the fields of Spain. Their blood is now part of the Spanish earth that they so unselfishly defended and their spirit will live on forever in the heart of every single student as he or she reviews the pages of this book.
T.J. Atwood, Department of Accounting
Oliver’s Readings and Materials on Tax Policy, 3d, by Philip D. Oliver
Philip D. Oliver's book, Readings and Materials on Tax Policy (3rd Edition), is an important addition to FSU's accounting and taxation library collection because it presents an excellent introduction to current tax policy issues. For each topic, the author provides a series of excerpts from multiple sources that comprehensively cover the topic along with an introduction that highlights key points developed through these readings and a brief description of each reading. This book is a good starting point for helping students understand the rationale for tax laws and the multiple objectives tax policy makers consider when tax laws are formulated. This understanding is essential for tax and accounting professionals in evaluating and analyzing the impact of current tax laws and future tax law changes on business and investment decisions. I highly recommend this book for our graduate tax and accounting students.
Kevin Beaver, College of Criminology and Criminal Justice
The Nurture Assumption: Why Children Turn Out the Way They Do, by Judith Rich Harris
In the book, The Nurture Assumption, Judith Rich Harris sets forth the provocative thesis that parental socialization has no lasting effects on personality. This book has been highly influential in my own thinking because it taught me the importance of following the data no matter where it might lead and no matter how unpopular the findings. I appreciate the honesty with which Judith Rich Harris wrote and her bravery for tackling a topic head-on. Conducting research meticulously and being honest in writing are principles that The Nurture Assumption highlight and that I have tried to emulate in my own scholarly development.
Carlos A. Bolanos, Department of Psychology
Neurobiology of Mental Illness, edited by Dennis S. Charney et al.
This is an incredible book that I constantly refer to in my daily work. For me, it serves as a constant reminder of how little we know about the biological basis of mental disease, the enormity of what needs to be discovered, and the exhilaration of being part of the discovery process. This volume has been a source of scientific inspiration and professional development for me and my students.
L. Elizabeth Chamblee Burch
Mass Torts in a World of Settlement, by Richard A. Nagareda
Richard Nagareda has been a tremendous mentor to me over the years and was unfailingly generous with his time, comments, and encouragement. As someone who had read his work for years, I was amazed that he took the time to read mine and to offer his insights. In doing so, he challenged me to push new ideas, explore their incentives on lawyers and the courts, and rethink what was possible. His untimely death left a gaping hole in the academy generally and complex litigation specifically. It's an honor to have known him. He is truly irreplaceable.
Gang Chen, Department of Civil and Environment Engineering
Theory and Practice of Water and Wastewater Treatment, Ronald L. Droste
This is the book I have been using for one of the major courses that I have taught for the past five years. It is an excellent textbook for water treatment courses. It is also a good reference book since it has a comprehensive coverage of all aspects with respect to drinking water and wastewater treatment. This book focuses on applications, especially engineering applications.
Irinel Chiorescu, Department of Physics
Electron Paramagnetic Resonance of Transition Ions, by A. Abragam and Betty Isabelle Bleaney
The book by Abragam and Bleaney is perhaps best described by the following quote, from Science magazine: “This monumental book is the most authoritative book in this field.” Indeed, in its 900 pages, the authors give a highly detailed survey of phenomena relevant to electromagnetic resonance, starting from basic Hamiltonians and ending with applications in various types of materials. The most important and perhaps rare trait of the book, is that it does not focus on a particular experimental technique, with basic theory and applications. Instead, the book goes a long distance in exploring laterally a multitude of phenomena, relevant to many facets of applied physics and material science. The book was instrumental for my growth as a graduate student, a postdoc and later on as an Assistant Professor at FSU.
Nicholas G. Cogan, Department of Mathematics
Mathematical Physiology, by James Keener and James Sneyd
I would like to take this opportunity to thank Florida State University as well as my graduate advisor, James Keener, and post-doctoral advisors, Lisa Fauci and Ricardo Cortez. I chose the book Mathematical Physiology for several reasons. This book exemplifies one of the main lessons that I learned from Dr. Keener: Be interested in everything, don't be scared off by complexity and tie everything together into a complete story. Taken individually, each chapter in this book takes a complicated process, isolates it and attempts to come to grips with, and predict the observations. Taken as a whole, the book shows how mathematical thinking, simplification and analysis can piece together a fascinating story line.
Volker H. Crede, Department of Physics
QCD as a theory of Hadrons: From Partons to Confinement, by Stephan Narison
Stephan Narison's book on Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD)--the theory of strong interactions--offers a pedagogical introduction to the perturbative and non-perturbative aspects of QCD. It provides a very valuable first step into the field of strong interactions for senior scientists as well as PhD students who would like to study this field. Introducing the basic theory and recent advances in QCD, this book reviews the historical development of the subject up to the present day, covering aspects of strong interactions such as the quark and parton models, the notion of colours and the S-matrix approach. On a personal level, I very much appreciate Narison's emphasis on hadron spectroscopy including a discussion of recent experimental results, which reminds me that this field remains a very active and lively part of nuclear physics. The book is a wonderful guide for teaching the material in the classroom and is also a valuable reference for graduate students and researchers.
Gareth R. Dutton, Department of Medical Humanities and Social Sciences
Oxford Handbook of Health Psychology, edited by Howard S. Friedman
Advances in medicine and healthcare technology have resulted in prolonged life, reduced disease burden, and even the amelioration of certain conditions in the U.S. This has changed the healthcare and public health landscape such that human behaviors (e.g., tobacco and alcohol use, diet and exercise, sexual behaviors) have become increasingly important in the prevention or development of some of the most concerning health problems and causes of death now facing this country, including heart disease, certain cancers, diabetes, and HIV/AIDS. Thus, it is imperative that researchers and healthcare providers develop an understanding of patients’ psychological, social, and cultural contexts and how such factors influence health behaviors and the risk for developing chronic medical conditions. Such understanding can lead to the development and testing of necessary prevention and treatment programs that improve health-promoting behaviors and reduce unhealthy or risky behaviors. This volume provides a broad overview of these issues as they pertain to a variety of patient populations, health conditions, and psychological/behavioral approaches to treatment.
J. Read Gainsford, College of Music
Debussy Piano Music, Series 1, by Claude Debussy, edited by Roy Howat et al.
While music is often thought of as art made with sound, there are composers whose work explores not just the possibilities of sound, albeit of the widest range possible, but also the interacting of those sounds with silence, and with our perception of time’s passing. Being and nonbeing; time and eternity; to exist and to become. No composer does this more successfully than Claude Debussy, whose work was of equivalent impact to that of Freud or Einstein, at around the same period of history. While his music is often enjoyed simply for its pleasing sounds, I find a profound sense of meaning in these relationships between the fundamentals of being and perception that is a continuing source of enrichment; it also contains utterly original and exquisitely beautiful sounds! I am delighted to have discovered over the years that this is music whose requirements happen to fit my skill set as a musician – as though it were my native tongue. Thus it facilitates my ability to find a “Flow” state in my performing, as well as to connect with a deeper purpose behind this art of sound. It is a deep honor to have these works, in the newest and best researched edition available, given to our library for others to share.
Amy R.Guerette, School of Teacher Education
The Unseen Minority: A Social History of Blindness in the United States, by Frances A. Koestler
As a faculty member in the Program in Visual Impairments, The Unseen Minority: A Social History of Blindness in the United States (Koestler, 2004) continues to influence both my teaching and research. I strongly believe that one must understand and learn from the history of their field study to better inform current theory and practice. I continue to be amazed by the grassroots efforts of the field that have made certain the equal rights in employment and education experienced today by individuals with visual impairments. The notion of educating children who were blind was first introduced in the mid-1700s and the first teachers were training in 1825. Without the tireless work of many important individuals in the past, I would not be training the next generation of educators who will ensure that students with visual impairments lead successful and independent lives.
Kristine C. Harper, Department of History
The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-first Century, edited by George E. Walker et al.
I first read about The Formation of Scholars: Rethinking Doctoral Education for the Twenty-First Century in late 2007 as I was preparing for my on-campus interview at Florida State University. When the book was released in mid-January 2008, I read it in one sitting and then promptly ordered six more copies: one for my husband and one for each of his graduate students. The crux of this book: there are better ways to bring new colleagues into our profession than we presently use. Our students come to graduate school looking to be part of a community of scholars. Instead, they too often find themselves isolated from each other and faculty members as everyone is too busy doing their “own work.” Instead of providing a simultaneously nurturing, stimulating, and challenging atmosphere where everyone benefits from thinking deeply and sharing insights and questions, many faculty members seem to think that getting a doctoral education is some kind of hoop-jumping exercise, which then perpetuates itself in the next generation. This book totally changed my conceptions of the best practices in graduate education. I hope faculty members and graduate students will read this book, look at their own programs, and seek to make a difference for the better in their efforts to transform students into scholars.
Jamila Horabin, Department of Biomedical Sciences in the College of Medicine
Mutation: The History of an Idea from Darwin to Genomics, by Elof Axel Carlson
As a molecular biologist and geneticist, my intellectual growth has relied on the heroes and heroines this history covers. Without mutations genetic diversity does not exist, and the geneticist has no tools; molecular developmental biology would not have been born, and the fascination we enjoy unraveling the secrets of life would be out of our reach. As we currently push the research envelope with genomics and multi-locus analysis, a reminder of the shoulders on which we stand is necessary and refreshing.
David Ikard, Department of English
Beloved, by Toni Morrison
Toni Morrison’s Beloved fundamentally changed the way we view slavery and particularly black women’s experiences in slavery. Morrison wrote the book because it was the kind of novel that she wanted to read as a black woman that didn’t exist at the time. To read Beloved is to come face to face with the great American tragedy of slavery and to finger the jagged edge of human despair and resilience. Beloved, as the closing lines read, is “not a story to pass on.” I continue to marvel at the ways that the novel moves and engages students from across the racial spectrum. As a scholar, I marvel at the ways in which the novel continues to challenge me; to open up new avenues of investigation. Indeed, I have taught it numerous times and never the same way twice. To me, good literature is not only engaging but transformative—it rattles the consciousness and stirs the soul. Beloved is the standard-bearer in this regard. On a personal level, it also serves as a constant reminder of why I do what I do as a scholar-teacher and why living a life of the mind is such a privilege, especially for those of us who exist on the margins.
E. Nicole Kelley, Department of Religion
Écrits apocryphes chrétiens I & II editedby François Bovon and Pierre Geoltrain
Stephanie A. Leitch, Department of Art History
Reframing the Renaissance: visual culture in Europe and Latin America, 1450-1650, edited by Claire Farago
Claire Farago's Reframing the Renaissance was instrumental in dismantling anachronistic distinctions about the origins of the Renaissance; it extended its scope beyond Italy and encouraged the consideration of genres beyond sculpture, architecture, and painting. In short, it allowed me to tackle prints of non-European peoples (from the Americas, Africa and Asia) that circulated in Germany in the early years of the 16th century and to argue for an ethnography of them in time and a place where nobody thought to look.
Mia Liza A. Lustria, School of Library and Information Science
The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle
I got a lot of inspiration from Eckhart Tolle's The Power of Now. The pressures of work and life in general can often blind you to what is truly important. It's easy to get tunnel vision and begin to ignore all the precious things that make life worth living. Eckhart's message of learning how to live in the "now" reminded me that I didn't have to treat life like a rat race (i.e., a race to get grants and get published) and that the things that can give one joy and a truer sense of purpose are often "hidden in plain sight".
John E. Mann, Department of Art
One Picture Book #48: Fujisan, by Masao Yamamoto
Fujisan was chosen for its consideration of small images as a means for considering large ideas. In this small volume, Masao Yamamoto uses photography to consider the iconography of Japan's most famous mountain. This book joins a second book already in the library's collection to present a wider study of Yamamoto's careful use of image selection, sequencing, and the pacing in the photobook format. Consideration was given to the book's size and materials, and this volume includes an original print to provide students the opportunity to see one of his meticulously crafted photographs.
Brian Miller, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Summer World: A Season of Bounty, by Bernd Heinrich
Perhaps the most difficult skill that an academic must learn is the art of effective writing. For any specialist this is difficult, but for a scientist this can be doubly challenging – science is technical, detailed and dense. In the absence of lucid writing, scientists cannot convince the public or their peers of the worthiness of their pursuits. I have chosen a book by Bernd Heinrich because, in my opinion, he is the preeminent scientific writer of the modern day. His writings are not just clear; they are engaging, insightful and inspirational. At the center of Heinrich’s work lie simple questions originating from thoughtful observations of the surrounding world. Heinrich is an astute observer, yet many of the topics of his inquiries seem blatantly obvious to the reader in hindsight. This is the first mark of a good scientist and a great writer. Heinrich explains the natural world in simple terms using the keen eye of a behavioral ecologist, but does so with the literary poetry of Thoreau and Whitman. In so doing, Heinrich provides the clearest example of why science is not only a pursuit, but also a way of life.
Michael Neal, Department of English
A Better Pencil: readers, writers and the digital revolution, by Dennis E. Baron
I first became familiar with Dennis Baron’s work in “From Pencils to Pixels: The Stages of Literacy Technologies,” which appeared in Gail Hawisher and Cynthia Selfe’s Passions, Pedagogies, and 21st Century Technology (1999). In his chapter, Baron convincingly argues that the reception of new writing technologies tends toward an unhealthy polarization. Using historical examples such as the rubber eraser on the ends of pencils, Baron demonstrates that developments in writing technologies are often met with a simultaneous positive and negative reception. In this case many felt strongly that erasers on pencils would empower writers to produce error-free texts since they could change anything at any time. Equally strong, however, were voices that argued grammar would suffer because writers would no longer compose carefully. Additionally, they suggested that erasers would certainly increase the likelihood of students cheating on exams. In his book A Better Pencil: Readers, Writers and the Digital Revolution Baron expands his thoughtful exploration of writing technologies, and while he does not deal with writing assessment, I was influenced by his theory and framework, which compelled me to avoid precipitous praise or condemnation in my examination of digital writing and assessment technologies.
Paul H. Outka, Department of English
Animal Rites: American Culture, the Discourse of Species, and Posthumanist Theory by Cary Wolfe
I chose Animal Rites for a variety of personal, professional, and practical reasons. Wolfe’s work exemplifies what is now a central set of theoretical concerns about the unstable and intersecting definitions of “human” and “animal,” and what has been at stake in the often violent and cruel maintenance of those distinct definitions. But the book is more than a sharp critique of our callous treatment of our fellow creatures and the beliefs and identities that have both permitted and flowed from that cruelty. It is just as deeply a hopeful text about the possibilities afforded when those definitions become fluid, the new sorts of identities, intimacies, and alliances with each other(s) that become possible in the emergence of a more epistemologically and ontologically humble, and more broadly affectionate and profoundly bio-affiliated, posthuman. Plus, the library didn’t have a copy.
Svetlana Pevnitskaya, Department of Economics
The Handbook of Experimental Economics, edited by John H. Kagel and Alvin E. Roth
The Handbook of Experimental Economics is the first book with the overview of the main contributions and results of applying experimental methods in economics. The book was published prior to my joining the PhD program, but it remained the main reference in the field for over a decade. Experimental economics became my main area of research and I used the book extensively to learn about key topics, approaches and methodology. Each chapter of the book was written by leaders in respective areas so this was also an introduction to the prominent scholars in the field. Over the years I was fortunate to do research and contribute to some of these research areas and get to know and work with some authors. The second volume of the book (which is coming out soon) references my papers. So for me the book represents and illustrates the development of my path as a scholar in addition to serving as an introduction to experimental economics.
Jennifer Proffitt, School of Communication
Why TV is Not Our Fault: television programming, viewers, and who’s really in control, by Eileen R. Meehan
Eileen Meehan’s book, Why TV is Not Our Fault: Television Programming, Viewers, and Who’s Really in Control, is an important addition to the media studies literature and critical studies dialogue. Meehan’s book meticulously documents and historically grounds her arguments using a political economic approach. Her book is intellectually rigorous as it systematically critiques the political economy of the U.S. television industry, yet it is accessible to a larger audience, including undergraduate and graduate students. Additionally, Meehan is gracious to graduate students and junior faculty as she provides constructive feedback on research and enthusiastically discusses research ideas. Her presentations at conferences and colloquia are as rigorous and accessible as her writing, motivating others to be better researchers and speakers as well. In sum, Eileen Meehan is an inspiration as she models what it means to be a public intellectual.
Melissa Radey, School of Social Work
Promises I Can Keep: why poor women put motherhood before marriage, by Kathryn Edin and Maria Kefalas
Promises I Can Keep documents the economic and emotional struggles of single mothers juggling work and family. The qualitative accounts provide the impetus for my quantitative work to uncover demographic and socioeconomic injustices single-mother and low-income families face.
Alysia D. Roehrig, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
Psychology, Volume 7, Educational Psychology, edited by William M. Reynolds and Gloria E. Miller
I selected the Handbook of Psychology, Volume 7, Educational Psychology because for me it represents multiple stages of my enculturation as a professional academic. As a graduate student, I was fortunate to work with my late advisor, Michael Pressley, in an apprenticeship model. My learning opportunities were legitimate opportunities to participate in the academic field, to develop my skills and begin to contribute to the community of practice I wanted to join (Lave, 1991). As a junior coauthor, I helped him to write the chapter on “Teaching processes in elementary and secondary education” (Pressley, Roehrig, Raphael, Dolezal, Bohn, Mohan, Wharton-McDonald, Bogner, & Hogan, 2003), which appears in a 12-volume psychology reference set written and edited by top scholars in the field. Last year, after working several years as an assistant professor, I was invited to contribute, as the lead author, to the latest Educational Psychology Handbook from the American Psychological Association. I enlisted a few of my own graduate students as coauthors, and together with another colleague we wrote the forthcoming chapter on “Effective teachers and teaching: Characteristics and practices related to student outcomes” (Roehrig, Turner, Arrastia, Christesen, McElhaney, & Jakiel, in press). We focused on reviewing the relevant literature that appeared since writing the chapter that appears in the previous handbook, which is the volume I selected for this honor. Recently, one of my graduate students commented on how the process of learning as a graduate student—to becoming a faculty member and hopefully eventually a lead scholar in the field—is like Lave’s perspective on situated learning: we evolve from legitimate peripheral participation to full participation in communities of practice. In doing so we hopefully develop identities as knowledgeable community members and become central to that community as we continue to socially construct meaning and future communities of practice. I was reminded that it was not long ago I was in his shoes…he gave me chills. The earlier handbook, and the chapter therein, embodies a generative experience in my life that continues to shape how I work with current students as we try to understand the complexities of human learning in our research and writing.
Valerie Shute, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
The Diamond Age, or, Young Lady’s Illustrated Primer, by Neal Stephenson
One of my areas of expertise in which I've been involved since the mid 1980s, is "artificial intelligence in education." My selected book goes down that road about 100 years hence. I chose the book because it is a feast for the brain, interweaving many of my favorite topics--related to education (and associated social-economical inequities), artificial intelligence, and nanotechnology--all within a mind-bending, adventure-filled, post-cyber-punk storyline. The Diamond Age is set in a future where nanotechnology is omnipresent, generally in the form of "matter compilers" and the products that come out of them. Exotic technology, like a mechanical horse (light enough to be carried one-handed) and smart paper (that can show you personalized news headlines), are personal-use products. Major cities have immune systems made up of aerostatic defensive micromachines. Matter compilers receive raw materials from the Feed, a system analogous to the electrical grid of modern society. Rather than simple electricity, it carries molecules, and matter compilers assemble those molecules into whatever goods the compiler's user wants. The Source, where the Feed's stream of matter originates, is controlled by the Victorian phyle, though smaller, independent Feeds are possible. The story takes place mainly in a New Victorian enclave off the coast of Shanghai. John Hackworth is a brilliant New Victorian engineer who designs a nanotech, artificially-intelligent book, The Young Lady's Primer, to educate the young daughter of one of the leaders of the New Victorians. The book falls into the hands of a little slum girl, and The Diamond Age follows her growth into a young woman. This book, which I read when it came out in the mid 1990s, inspired me in terms of the great promises (and pitfalls) of using artificial intelligence in education.
Susan M. Smedema, Department of Educational Psychology and Learning Systems
Understanding Psychosocial Adjustment to Chronic Illness and Disability: A Handbook for Evidence-based Practitioners in Rehabilitation, edited by Fong Chan et al.
The main focus of my research is psychosocial aspects of disability. In particular, I study adjustment to disability and quality of life issues. I am especially interested in helping rehabilitation professionals understand what they may be able to do to facilitate optimal adjustment in persons with disabilities. Ideally, this will maximally improve each individual's quality of life. This book is an excellent resource for rehabilitation professionals, in that it provides theoretical background, assessment instruments, and intervention techniques that are based upon the latest research. I had the honor of co-authoring three chapters in this book, and it is my hope that, through its use, rehabilitation professionals can help persons with disabilities achieve the highest levels of adjustment and quality of life.
Robert “Dan” Wagoner, School of Dance
Private Domain: An Autobiography, by Paul Taylor
Having grown up in West Virginia, I attended West Virginia University and received a B.S. degree in pharmacy. Acting completely on intuitive impulses, I moved to New York City to become a dancer. A few months later I was in Martha Graham’s Dance Company where I met Paul Taylor. Eventually, Paul formed his own company and I danced with him for eight years. Since this was an exciting part of my life, this book evokes experiences of creative rehearsals, worldwide travel and meeting artists such as Aaron Copeland, Robert Rauschenberg, John Cage, Isamu Noguchi and the poet Frank O’Hara among others. Paul writes well and if one is interested in the arts, especially dance, I should think this book would stimulate and entertain.
Wei Yang, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
Molecular Biology of the Cell, by Bruce Alberts et al.
I was trained as a theoretical chemist. To me, solving the Schrödinger equation, understanding electron distributions and molecular behaviors, calculating partition functions, and predicting small molecule ensemble properties had been challenging but interesting games. Back in 1996, when I was struggling with a possibly useful Fugide molecule on the computer screen for my B.S. thesis requirement, performing quantitative simulation of an ever-moving monster biological system was far above my head, although constantly, such fancy large molecules were used as theoreticians’ inspirational targets. Largely due to ignorance, biomolecules had been perceived as mysterious identities and had not induced any of my interests. Accidentally, I glanced through Molecular Biology of the Cell, a heavy and beautifully printed book, which was on the desk of one of my graduate school friends. It attracted my attention. In this book, the biomolecules were described as the same identities as regular small molecules, but being able to carry complex biological functions. The explanations were so lively and convincing that I felt that I was watching a movie. This book played a role in converting me from a theoretical chemist to a computational biophysicist. Since the late 1990s, I have been dreaming of enabling quantitative simulation of long-timescale complex biomolecular processes in common computers. Over the past few years, my young research group at Florida State University has been pushing the sampling limit towards realistic timescales of biological processes. We are starting to be able to watch real movies of atom moving in biology, which could be imagined via the reading of Molecular Biology of the Cell. In particular, my wife, at that time my girlfriend, bought me my first Molecular Biology of the Cell and wrote my name on the first page.
Irene Zanini-Cordi, Department of Modern Languages and Linguistics
Dante and the Making of a Modern Author, by Albert Russell Ascoli
"Advice is like snow; the softer it falls, the longer it dwells upon, and the deeper it sinks into the mind."--Samuel Taylor Coleridge
It is only fitting that my inscription to this book is in praise of mentorship. It is in the example, dedication, and teaching of Albert R. Ascoli, that his students, like me, have learned what it takes to "make a modern scholar". Through his work and writing, we have learned what it takes to become a modern author.
Yi Zhou, Department of Biodmedical Sciences
Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences (2 vol. set), edited by Gary G. Berntson and John T. Cacioppo
I was drawn to a career in neuroscience research by my curiosity and fascination to the brain, the most complex part of the human body. Owing to recent advances in neurological and behavioral science and the development of new research techniques, we are beginning to unravel the secret of the brain. The Handbook of Neuroscience for the Behavioral Sciences is one of the best reference books that provide us a solid foundation in the rapid expanding field of Neuroscience. I am fortunate to be among the first group of faculties to select a book for our libraries, and hope that this book will benefit the entire FSU Neuroscience community.
Lei Zhu, Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry
The Organic Chemistry of Biological Pathways, by John E. McMurry and Tadhg P. Begley
The book titled The Organic Chemistry of Biological Pathways by McMurry and Begley inspires new ways to teach the traditional discipline of Organic Chemistry. Organic Chemistry started as an area specializing in the synthesis of dyes, medicine, and explosives. Now it's grown to be a discipline for understanding biological systems on molecular and atomic levels. The chosen book describes how fundamental organic chemistry operates in biochemical pathways in living systems. It nicely connects organic chemistry to biochemistry and molecular biology, which serves well the future generations of biomedical researchers. On another, very important note, both authors donated their royalties to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, which is highly commendable and ought to be promoted.