[.ca] Fundamentals of Statistical and Thermal Physics (ISBN 007085615X)

one of the worst textbooks ever written:
I suspect the text was actually designed to inefficiently convey ideas. I cant believe someone has not written a student guide to fill in the holes for all the subtle leaps, overwhich students are expected to understand and apply.

Poor wording (and plenty of it):
I am trying to tech myself this subject and have found this book to be very difficult to follow. The author tries to explain the topics in many different ways at once, jumping back and forth between them and leaving the student trying to guess which analogy is being referenced. If N = number of ambiguous paths in the poor explanations, then amount learned L = 1/N! N is a large number here. Avoid this book.

Not that great:
I think this book is an example of what sometimes happens when popularity overtakes quality. This book is definitely popular. Some might even call it a classic. But it can't really compare with newer thermodynamics books that more closely follow the modern approach of teaching thermo. It would not be fair to say that the book is incomplete, as it covers all of the necessary topics. However, it does a fairly good job of making the subject more boring than it needs to be. And to anyone who has learned thermodynamics must realize how serious a charge this is. The single biggest obstacle to students struggling to learn thermodynamics is that they find the subject boring, and this book doesn't do anything to help the situation.

Good introduction, but a bit light.:
This book left me with two different impressions. On one hand, it is extremely well readable (in fact, some explanations are even too long and boring and could have been kept shorter). As such, it is a very smooth introduction to equilibrium statistical physics and its relationship with classical thermodynamics. This is the good news. The bad news is that under pages and pages of textual, simple explanation, the author hides real difficult and subtle points. So in fact it is a big book with a lot of pages that only brings you up to a modest height in statistical physics. Compared to Tolman, the information density is quite low. But then, that's what makes it an easy read.

A great book for a thinking man. Not for novices.:
One thing that distinguishes this book from the rest on stat mech is its emphasis on the physical content behind the equations. The author takes great pain to develop and elucidate, at every turn, a coherent physical picture for the edifice of statistical mechanics, in much the same style as the classic book by Tolman. However, if you are learning stat mech/thermo for the first time, you probably will be too busy familiarizing yourself with the equations to be able to appreciate the value of his explanations and motivations, which may just seem pointless rants. So, simply, if you are a newbie, try one of the more mediocre textbooks on stat mech, to learn the subject at a superficial level. Once you've mastered the more superficial stuff, you will come around to love this book, assuming that you are a reflective person.