Molecular Biology of the Cell

In my opinion, this book is the "bible" of molecular and cell biology. The two main advantages I found were the easy way of reading and a good design and pictures.

The publishers have made the 5th edition more "portable" by not printing the final 5 chapters of the book, but including them as electronic files on the DVD.

The unprinted chapters are:
21-Sexual Reproduction: Meiosis, Germ Cells, and Fertilization
22-Development of Multicellular Organisms
23-Specialized Tissues, Stem Cells, and Tissue Renewal
24-Pathogens, Infection, and Innate Immunity
25-The Adaptive Immune System

With the 4th edition there were 25 printed chapters and 1616 pages: $5.68/printed chapter, or ~8.8 cents/page based on my calculations using list price info. With the regular 5th edition, 20 printed chapters, 1268 pages: $7.10/printed chapter, or ~11.2 cents/page. So the cost per page for this edition has increased by over 1/4 as compared to the last edition. Admittedly, I am a geek for actually doing these calculations.

The chapters listed above are printed in the 5th reference edition (just not in this regular 5th edition), but as you might expect, the reference edition is a good bit pricier. I am giving the book 2 stars for content, because it really is a solid resource for learning molecular biology. However, with so many students carrying a heavy burden of debt by the time they graduate, it's a shame to see the continuing trend of rising prices for the best texts, making them just another contributor to the problems with education today. In this case the list price did not change between 4th and regular 5th editions, however I would argue that the "addition of portability" has decreased the value of this text.

The book was exactely what I was supposed to be, including original CD-ROM.
It arrived in perfect conditions and perfectly on time.
Perfect purchase!

this has everything the 4th edition had plus the latest discoveries within the past 5 years.

GREAT book, but the only problem is that the last 5 chapters are in PDF format on an attached CD rather than in print (they did this to make the book more portable). If you want the full print version, buy the Reference edition.