When it comes to engineering books, a particular system of units may comes as annoyance to those unfamiliar with it. Prof. Sandler however managed to avoid the indulgence of deluging the book with non-SI units, a certain pitfall many authors fell victim to in their endeavor to expose students to the real-world situations where units don't come nicely in meters and Kelvins. Well, as they say, the road to thermodynamic hell is paved with good intentions.

The derivation of the equations are sufficiently rigorous, and the algebra can be dauntingly so. As someone who appreciates mathematical formalism and rigor, I should find the course satisfying this [interest] of mine. Events did not turn out that way however; when the conceptually simple but algebraically tedious calculation is repeated over and over again with different variables (eg calculating the partial molar property of G, then for H, then for S, etc) one easily becomes stultified; the mind thenceforth approaches the book merely as an exercise in clever manipulation of mathematical symbols. This is most probably not a particular "fault" of this book, but the field itself.

The book took an axiomatic development of thermodynamics; some historical snippets are inserted to help the intuition whenever necessary.

Much to the wisdom of Prof. Sandler, his examples are clear and illustrative of the underlying concept he wishes to clarify; again here he managed to avoid the all-too-common indulgence in "cute" story problems (eg "Your uncle's friend Fred has opened a plant ...") that in some books may span two annoyingly long paragraphs. (I have actually sit for a 50-minute exam where students were expected to extract vital informations from such vague story problems. As expected, the students did not find them funny.)

The last complaint I have for this book is the apparent lack of numerical answers at the back. At least numerical answers would help one check whether the solution worked out is reasonable. I know students who have become frustrated by this absence. The psychological effect is apparent: students, especially those motivated by instant gratification, simply refused to do the work reasoning that it is useless to labor on something without at least having the comforting feeling that one is nearing the answer at each step.