Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments: All Lab, No Lecture (DIY Science)

I bought this book with high hopes of learning some Chemistry.
All the reviewers raved about how wonderful it was and felt it was just what I was looking for.
Well, after going through several chapters, I've come to a different conclusion than everyone else posting here so I guess it's motivated me to at least write about my experiences.
The book starts out very well covering the basics on lab equipment, safety, disposal of chemicals, etc.
It gives a list of all the chemicals and lab equipment you'll need to do the experiments and places to buy them which some offer as complete kits.
Great, I can buy the kits and just get down to doing the experiments - wrong.
After having invested several hundred dollars in this venture, with each new experiment, there is something missing that I need to do the experiment which was not on the initial list of things needed.
Oh, I guess he explains that there are every day items that you'll need which you should find around the house or at any local hardware store or pharmacy. I've spent too much of my time running around to hardware stores, pharmacy's and other places looking for items that I still don't have (after spending lots of $$$ on the kits that include 'everything you need'). I feel each experiment is a scavenger hunt. Place after place would not have what I was suppose to easily find either.
I can't tell you how disappointed I am with this.
I thought I would buy the chem kits and be able to just sit down and do experiments ... nothing further from the truth. Expect to be out on a scavenger hunt - for every experiment.
OK, enough of that.
My next disappointment is that the experiments are not explained very well in what the underlying objective and theory you're proving is.
I guess I can expect that since the title tells me that it's "All lab, No lecture". Don't expect this to teach you what you should really be learning from doing these experiments. Your only doing what he tells you to do and you move on. Well, I'd like to know a little more about what just happened so I understand what I just did and how that might be applied in other ways. However, you just move on to the next experiment.
I guess if you have a thorough understanding of general chemistry and just want some lab experiments outlined for you, then this is the book for you. However, I would venture to guess that if you already had a good understanding of general chemistry, you would have no need for this book. So what audience is this book trying to target??? I don't know.

If you're looking to learn chemistry, this is not the book.
If you think you're going to be able to just sit down and start doing experiments after buying the chem kits and lab equipment kits, you're wrong. You'll be on plenty of scavenger hunts with some items hard to find and after each experiment you'll be left asking yourself, "What did I just learn?".
If this author would have taken the time to have provided the Lecture with the Lab, this might have been a very good book to learn chemistry since I've had a hard time finding "Lecture" with the "Lab" books.

I guess I'm the only one who's found this to be a disappointment thus far.

There are many excellent theory books suitable for high school and early university chemistry courses but few really good practical manuals. Many lab manuals are ad hoc productions of variable quality geared to the school or college teaching the subject.

Robert Thompson's book is an excellent guide to performing interesting experiments that complement the theoretical instruction in a course.

Thompson discusses lab safety, how to obtain chemicals and equipment needed for the labs and potential legal hazards of some chemicals.

Chemistry cannot be learned effectively just in a classroom, it's necessary also to learn the planning, observational and manual skills required to become adept at preparing and mixing solutions and observing results. Also emphasised is the need to write up results so that they can be repeated later or by others.

This book is an excellent companion to a chemical lab course and well complements chemistry theory taught in the classroom. It would also be most useful to someone performing chemistry experiments as a hobby.

Many other reviewers have made comments about the demise of home chemistry sets and their youthful experiences. I echo many of the same thoughts. Without going in to the details suffice to say that I loved my chemistry set and still relish those youthful memories. I have long lamented the fact that you can no longer buy a decent home chemistry set. Thompson's book addresses this problem and fills a much needed niche. This by far the best book around if you want to setup your own chemistry lab and conduct experiments at home.

This is a real how to book that addresses the practical issues of setting up a chemistry lab and conducting experiments. In addition to the chapters that deal with the actual experiments, there are chapters on safety, equipment, and where to find chemicals. There is also good discussion about the disposal of chemicals and a realistic and practical discussion about the dangers of chemicals.

I've had a copy of the book for a couple of months. I've had the opportunity to read much of it and actually try some of the experiments. I don't have a lot of room for a lab but that hasn't stopped me from experimenting. I originally obtained the book for my son but I have to admit I find it more interesting and useful than he does. While he is interested in chemistry and has enjoyed out experiments he is too busy with other things to really get into it at the moment. I hope that will change after the summer ends and we settle in for the winter. I plan to incorporate chemistry into our home schooling program and this book is the perfect tool to help guide my efforts.

The bottom line is that this book is educational, practical and fun. I recommend it for anyone interested in learning about basic practical chemistry. If you are a parent and your child is interested in chemistry you need this book. It will be invaluable for home school parents who plan to teach chemistry and as a supplement for high school chemistry students. I would not be surprised to find that chemistry teachers adopted this book in their own curriculum.

As one of the other reviewers wrote, this book has much more than what you would get with a typical chemistry "toy" kit. Everything is well explained in detail, from the level of quality and what equipment to buy, where to obtain chemicals, and the steps for each experiment. The experiments have a full explanation of process being investigated, questions and calculations to make real quantitative assessments.

My son had been asking me about science experiments we could do at home. I had fond memories of my chemistry kit as a child, but found the current ones pathetic. I found this book to be the perfect remedy. The supporting web site is also a wonderful resource. We are just starting to slowly work through the projects. I expect this to be a great bonding experience as well as an educational experience.