Until this year only three main textbooks have been available to teachers of physical biochemistry courses: Freifelder's Physical Biochemistry (2nd ed.; Freeman, 1982), van Holde's Physical Biochemistry (2nd ed.; Prentice-Hall, 1985), and Bergethon and Simons's Biophysical Chemistry (Springer-Verlag, 1990). This year both van Holde and Bergethon have released new editions of their texts, so now is a good time to compare the books available.

From its first edition in 1976 through the early part of this decade Freifelder was a favorite text. It is very clearly written, goes into great detail in its explanations of biophysical analytical methods, and gives many "real-life" examples of the data obtained using these methods. The book is oriented more toward practice than theory, however, and there is very little discussion of thermodynamic principles in Freifelder's text.

This deficit was filled admirably both by van Holde and by Bergethon and Simons. The latter 1990 text includes a very complete discussion of the laws of thermodynamics, enthalpy, entropy, free energy, chemical potential, phase equilibria, and aqueous solutions. In addition, Bergethon and Simons include extended discussions of membrane biophysics, including electrostatic and electrokinetic phenomena, transport and diffusion, and irreversible/nonequilibrium thermodynamics. The prose in this text is unfortunately much more formal and less student-friendly than Friefelder's-Bergethon and Simons write more like physical chemists than like biochemists. Another weakness of this text is an almost complete lack of discussion of biophysical analytical methods. The authors seem to have thrown out the baby with the bath water, concentrating on thermodynamic theory to the exclusion of laboratory methods and real-life examples.

All of this brings us to van Holde et al., who seem to have reached a fairly pleasing compromise between Freifelder and Bergethon. In terms of prose, I found van Holde to be more lucid than Bergethon, but stiffer that Freifelder and not quite as clear. Van Holde's new text features an extensive presentation of biochemical thermodynamics, including solute-solvent interactions and macromolecular structure (proteins, DNA, etc.). Unfortunately missing from this discussion is any kind of substantial treatment of irreversible/nonequilibrium thermodynamics. On the other hand, discussion of biophysical analytical techniques is quite extensive. In fact, 8 of 15 chapters are devoted to these topics, including one on X-ray diffraction! Two somewhat minor omissions: I found no mention of either EPR spectroscopy or immunochemical analytical methods.

Van Holde et al. have sprinkled examples of experimental data fairly liberally in with their theoretical discussions. They have paid particular attention to DNA structure and interactions, which is somewhat unusual for a biophysical text. On the other hand, I felt that proteins got something of a short shrift. Real working enzymes are not featured prominently, and the treatment of membranes and membrane processes is fairly cursory (only about 15-20 pages, spread over two chapters). Important biophysical systems such as muscle contraction; ion pumps and channels; membrane structure, potentials, and gradients; and bioenergetics are thus relegated to a single paragraph of text or less.

In conclusion, I would recommend van Holde et al. as a text for an advanced undergraduate or beginning graduate course in biophysical chemistry, especially if the instructor wishes to stress both thermodynamic theory and analytical methods. Those who wish to feature extensive examples of real proteins in action or membrane phenomena may be disappointed with this text; they will be forced to find external supplementary readings to flesh out their course.