I already had the 3rd edition of this book when I found this book which is the 8th edition (though I notice the 3rd edition is for the International Student Edition and the year of publication is relatively recent). But when I found the 8th edition on sale at a Charity book fair for $10 it was hard to pass up. This is really a very impressive text book and I've only just dipped into it from place to place. It does mention that they have a much enlarged section about electrical properties of materials. And, I guess, with all the research that's going into advanced materials it is going to be hard to keep up with developments. It's not exactly bedtime reading but still full of fascinating stuff. For example, I've just been reading about polymer structures and the difference in repeating structures (which are relatively simple in themselves but give rise to different properties of the different polymers. Maybe, I'll try reading parts of this in a systematic way...but life is short (especially when you're my age) so I doubt I'll be reading the lot. Nevertheless happy to give it 5 stars. ( )

This was my best book of my undergraduate engineering career. It's very straightforward and clearly written and covers a majority of the need-to-know topics. Everyone in my classes went back to use this book as a basis for later classes (this was an intro class textbook) because it gives a good idea of what you're looking at before you dive in.

See my previous review for the seventh edition. ( )

One of the most popular materials science textbooks, ever. The explanations of materials and their structure are very good. Callister has excellent examples throughout the book. ( )