The question of what textbook to use is very much context sensitive, that is, it depends on what the reader wants and needs to know. Unfortunately, this question us easy to answer with hindsight, but not so obvious to the person looking for answers.
Having said that, I declare a conflict of interest as one of the mentioned textbook authors. The conflict, however, is modest because I am not aware of anyone making a fortune on crystallography textbooks. I think it is reasonable to delineate the textbook market by what the reader ultimately wants to accomplish. What a structural biologist should know, versus what is expert knowledge, has been a contentious issue for quite some years. A lot of people have thought hard about this, and the education committees of the American Crystallographic Association (ACA) and USNC/Cr organized a crystallography education summit, whose outcome is the consensus policy statement on crystallography education and training available from here: http://www.ruppweb.org/garland/study_group.htm I privately think that as a first contact for the user of structure models, the Rhodes book is a great start. If you are a tad more interested in how it works, Jenny Glusker's old text in its revised form is still one of my favorites, and the Blow book as well Alex's compilation are quite useful. Drenth helps once you are already engaged in the business, and have some idea what it is about. The IUCr compilation is an extremely useful hard core resource if you are interested in the nuz and bolz of crystallography in general. Not to forget the excellent multi-author volumes of Methods of Enzymology as an in-depth resource. Having said that, the reason why I decided to add another tome (BMC) to the already prolific writings in protein crystallography is that I felt that none of the above provided a consistent and modern picture of crystallography in the probabilistic framework it actually operates in. This is - in a crystallographic time frame - ancient history; a first resource being the 1952 work of Crick and Blow, and it continues via French and Wilson to Bricogne and on. So, as a concluding statement, I think there is more to biomolecular crystallography that just nuz and bolz, and it touches many very fundamental challenges and uncertainties, ultimately forcing my emphasis on probabilistic approaches and the resulting digressions in the subversive sidebars. Consequentially, if you like the Schaum series and Kaplan SAT rest prep books, don't waste your money on my book. Instead, get one of the (nearly as expensive by weight and volume) monographs mentioned above, they are in fact good and will lead you in the right direction. If you like Neal Stevenson, Rev. Bayes, and a touch of randomness, and you understand that the probability of receiving the Nobel Price approaches practically zero once you have been infected by the spirit of BMC, go for it ;-) BR -----Original Message----- From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Robert Sweet Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 1:26 PM To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK Subject: Re: [ccp4bb] Beginning crystallography text I like David Blow's book for beginners -- one can get the gist of things without having much math: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?an=blow&sts=t&tn=crystallograp hy&x=35&y=6 Bernhard Rupp's book, mentioned earlier, is the current gold standard, in my view. Bob On Thu, 8 Jul 2010, Prince, D Bryan wrote: > Having recently completed the CSHL Macromolecular crystallography course, I can recommend Introduction to Macromolecular Crystallography by Alexander McPherson (ISBN 987-0-470-18590-2). I am posting the link below: > > http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Macromolecular-Crystallography-Alexander- McPherson/dp/0470185902/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1278619717&sr=1-1 > > Kind regards and good luck! > > Bryan > > > -------------------------------------------------------------------------- > Confidentiality Notice: This message is private and may contain confidential and proprietary information. If you have received this message in error, please notify us and remove it from your system and note that you must not copy, distribute or take any action in reliance on it. Any unauthorized use or disclosure of the contents of this message is not permitted and may be unlawful. > > -----Original Message----- > From: CCP4 bulletin board [mailto:ccp...@jiscmail.ac.uk] On Behalf Of Peter Hsu > Sent: Thursday, July 08, 2010 3:36 PM > To: CCP4BB@JISCMAIL.AC.UK > Subject: [ccp4bb] Beginning crystallography text > > Hi all, > > I haven't gotten past the phase of growing the crystal, but I'd certainly still like to learn the actual theories of crystallography. Can anyone recommend a good beginner to mid-level text on macromolecular crystallography? > > Thanks, > Peter > -- ========================================================================= Robert M. Sweet E-Dress: sw...@bnl.gov Group Leader, PXRR: Macromolecular ^ (that's L Crystallography Research Resource at NSLS not 1) http://px.nsls.bnl.gov/ Biology Dept Brookhaven Nat'l Lab. Phones: Upton, NY 11973 631 344 3401 (Office) U.S.A. 631 344 2741 (Facsimile) =========================================================================
