A new edition of my textbook Principles of Inorganic Chemistry (2e) is now available on the Wiley website. You are welcome to request a digital examination copy at this site. For instructors who adopt the textbook, you can also download a Solutions Guide to the end of chapter problems. The second edition is more suitable for use at the undergraduate level than was the first and has been rewritten to have a more engaging and conversive style. The structure of the chapters has also changed. Please check it out. 

Does anyone remember seeing a table in an inorganic text (I'm guessing circa 1980s vintage) that listed out all the various changes in OS, VEC, dⁿand CN for the various reactions in organometallic/inorganic chemistry? For example, for oxidative addition, OS, VEC and CN all change by +2, and dn goes down by 2. But this table was very complete and had radical reactions, insertions, ligand exchange reactions, and all sorts of other reactions listed as well.

Does anyone have thoughts to share (good or bad) on either or both of these resources? I will be teaching Gen Chem I and II at Rider University this year and we are adopting these teaching tools. The textbook is available free and therefore represents a significant cost savings for the students (https://openstaxcollege.org/textbooks/chemistry). I have looked through the book and it seems to be pretty solid, but haven't used it for teaching yet.

I know there's an old thread on this topic somewhere, but I can't find it. We've been using Shriver and Atkins' Inorganic Chem for a while now. Our other inorganic chemist tried Miessler and Tarr once and it was a bust. It was just too much for our students. I agree that Shriver and Atkins is a decent text, but it skimps so much on symmetry and group theory. I was comtemplaing a change to Housecroft and Sharpe (4th edition). Any thoughts? The order of the material is quite different than Shriver, but I constantly find myself going back to Housecroft (which I used as an undergraduate).

It was pointed out at our recent bioinorganic workshop at Northwestern that the new version of MT&F has no chapter on bioinorganic. 

If you don't have the bioinorganic chapter from previous editions, you can request chapter 16 from the following online form (you need ot contact your Pearson rep).  Maybe if a lot of us from the VIPEr community request the chapter, they will re-include the chapter in the next edition.

http://www.pearsonhighered.com/miessler5einfo/

It is the time of year when the bookstore is hounding me for my past-due textbook selection for the fall!   It has been several years since I've taught our inorganic course at the junior/senior level with pre- and post-P-Chem students.  The last few times I've used various editions of Housecroft and Sharpe, and I'm considering that again.   I'd also be interested in what peope think of the new Miessler, Tarr, and Fischer.

Not to ding Miessler and Tarr, I love the book.  But i'm finding more typos than usual in the 4th ed. Someone suggested I create a forum post to log them to be helpful.  Here are the ones I can think of right now:

problem 12.21 (page 482):  R. L. Rheingold?? should be A. L. Rheingold.