6. Reference books 101

I’ve covered one whole post about references, but those were some views/opinions that I had that I wanted to share with you so you get a better perspective about them.

If you’re here for this post, then I hope I’ve already convinced you enough to fall in love with and use references.

This post is going to be my views on the all the references for each of the subjects that I used so far in my four years of B. Pharmacy, which ones are the best for each subject and how to use them for maximum benefit. This post is based on my own experience in all these years and someone else might have different views on what their favorite books are and how they used them. You can use this as a basic guide to start exploring them!

You can borrow these books from the library, download them from the internet, scan them to make your own PDFs and the last option you have is to Xerox them at your college stationary (I’m assuming they do it at a cheap cost because my college stationary used to Xerox books for me at the cheapest costs)

Some books that I would recommend you to buy/Xerox a hard copy and keep since you will use them a lot throughout are:

• Foye's Principles of Medicinal Chemistry
• Pharmacognosy by CK Kokate (The big book)
• Pharmacology by KD Tripathi
• Instrumental Methods of Chemical Analysis by Gurdeep Chatwal 
• Principles of Human Anatomy and Physiology by Tortora
• Organic Chemistry by Morrison Boyd
• The Theory and practice of industrial pharmacy by Lachman and Lieberman

The books i owned

I will be going in the order of the subjects given in the GPAT syllabus (as per my year – 2020). They also give a list of references at the end of their syllabus for more details.

1.    Physical Pharmacy and Physical Chemistry

1.    Physical Pharmaceutics by CVS Subramanyam: This is the most basic and easiest book you will find to study PP from. It’s a small book with the most complicated theories explained in simple and easy words so I always preferred reading from this book before I picked up Martin.

2.    Martin’s Physical Pharmacy: Of course PP can never be complete without this book. Although it can be complicated at first but if you read the basics and get a proper idea from Subramanyam then going through Martin becomes an easy task. There is always some additional information that you will find here. It has good charts and tables too that you need to memorize.

https://b-ok.asia/book/1167607/be8bde

3.    Physical Chemistry by Bahl and Bahl: This book is one that gives an easy and colorful representation of topics from PC part of the syllabus. It also has numericals that they explain with the help of solved sums so do those for practice. Bonus part is that you get a set of MCQs at the end of each chapter.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2819399/cbdae4

2.    Organic Chemistry

1.    Organic Chemistry by Bahl and Bahl: It’s a big book but the individual chapters are short and sweet. The way the information is given along with the representation of the reactions makes it easy to study from.

2.    Organic Chemistry by Morrison Boyd: This book goes one step ahead of Bahl and Bahl where it gives you more reactions and more theory surrounding the reactions like stereochemistry, various possibilities and pathways of the reactions, etc.

https://b-ok.asia/book/666239/bc0a41

3.    Reactions, Rearrangements and Reagents by S.N. Sanyal: A small and concise book that helps you study name reactions.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3692312/f2b476

4.    Organic Chemistry by Clayden & March's Advanced Organic Chemistry: These are two big fat books based on Organic Chemistry which are advanced and filled with loads of information. You will find good explanations for the more complicated topics in these books like stereochemistry, pericyclic reactions, conformations, etc 

https://archive.org/details/clyden

https://b-ok.asia/book/2216658/a222d1

3.    Medicinal Chemistry

1.    Foye's Principles of Medicinal Chemistry: This book will cover 95% of all aspects that you would want to cover under medicinal chemistry and has always been my first preference. It is a big book with vast theory so you will have to make your own notes for the SARs and structures. Additionally, the introductory theory is mostly the pharmacological aspect of the chapter gives in depth knowledge so don’t skip that.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2658911/6737a8

2.    Wilson & Gisvold's Textbook: This book aids as a secondary supplement to Foye. There are certain topics where the author has summarized the SARs into one small diagram, chart etc that makes it easier to remember topics. The very important reason why I recommend this book is because if you ever have a certain topic/point where the information given in Foye is contradicting with Wilson then ALWAYS choose Wilson over Foye because GPAT considers the answers of Wilson as correct. This is from my own personal experience and what I have seen in the past papers and some topics are:

• Deciding if “Mefloquine” is a 4-aminoquinoline or quinoline-methanol derivative (GPAT 2020).
• Degradation products of tetracycline at intermediate pH.
• Number of chiral centers in tetracycline.

https://b-ok.asia/book/1241476/cd69bb

3.    Textbook of Medicinal Chemistry By V. Alagarsamy: Simple and concise book for basic details like classifications and structures. Some SARs are nicely summarized in this book 

https://www.pdfdrive.com/textbook-of-medicinal-chemistry-volume-1-e175278076.html

https://www.pdfdrive.com/textbook-of-medicinal-chemistry-volume-ii-e34443224.html

4.    Pharmaceutics 

1.    The Theory and practice of industrial pharmacy by Lachman and Lieberman: This is an important book and will mostly cover all the topics in pharmaceutics. Read all things properly and try to note and remember the important numbers and values. The charts are helpful too.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3667988/039cf1

2.    Ansel's Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms: This book has less information that Lachman but in certain cases the theory provides some additional information.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3362652/fe0ce6

3.    Cooper and Gunn & Aulton: These are good for additional reading and more than enough to cover all aspects of pharmaceutics.

https://www.scribd.com/document/88990108/Cooper-and-Gunn-s-Tutorial-Pharmacy-by-Carter-6th-Editn

https://b-ok.asia/book/5411400/5b52a0

4.    Remington: This would be the one Godfather of all books in terms of pharmacy. The theory aspect is really in-depth and difficult to grasp at times. The charts and tables are really good and important. Make sure to go through all the tables given in this book.

https://b-ok.asia/book/1221484/0745a8

5.    Pharmacology

1.    Pharmacology by KDT: This is the main book that you will absolutely need when studying for pharmacology. One important tip is that always make sure that you’re studying from the latest edition because there are a lot of updates that keep happening and using an older edition means you'll skip on a lot of information. The latest one is 8^th edition (2019). This book looks vast at first but trust me you do really need to go through KDT and study pharmacology from here no matter how difficult it seems.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3607780/b049b4

2.    Pharmacology by Rang and Dale: This is the more colorful version to study pharmacology from but use it as a supplement to KDT. It has some really great charts and tables. Also go through all the small boxes there in each of the chapters because they have nicely highlighted important points.

https://b-ok.asia/book/5226962/e0de38

3.    Pharmacology by Shanbag: This is small book that is somewhere between a textbook and a reference. It is a very short and easy book to start off with if KDT seems scary to you. The author has given short explanations that are easy to understand. It has a few mnemonics to make it easy and there are certain topics where the style of representation makes it easy to grasp concepts easily.

https://medicostimes.com/shanbhag-pharmacology-pdf/

4.    Basic & Clinical Pharmacology by Katzung: This is the ultimate book that you will ever need for your most in depth questions related to pharmacology. Be careful though because it is very easy to get lost in this book. It has the structures given too so in a way you will revise medicinal chemistry too if you go through this book. I mainly used it to clarify doubts that KDT could not resolve.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3425339/11b612

5.    Gobind Rai Garg - Review of Pharmacology: This book is a savior and the most important book! It is a summary of about 4-5 books all squeezed into one book. Do not entirely depend on this book and use it along with KDT. It has short and simple straightforward points and important tables. Mnemonics - This is the best part where the author has given easy mnemonics for most topics and make sure to note each and every one of them.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3621807/54a41f

6.    Pharmacological Classification by Vikas Sheth & Drug Classification by KDT: These are two books that only contain classifications. Vikas Sheth is a small book about the size of a palm but is very tough to find in the market. You can find eBooks for both of them and I highly recommend you to go through at least one classification a day using the PDF to keep revising the drug names and classes.  

https://b-ok.asia/book/2492281/e927a0

6.    Pharmacognosy

1.    Pharmacognosy by CK Kokate: This is an important book and an essential one that will cover about 90% of all topics that are given under this subject. You will have to make your own notes to write down the important aspects of each drug.

2.    Pharmacognosy by Ashutosh Kar: This is another good book that can aid as a supplement to Kokate. It has certain topics explained with more information so give it a read too once in a while.

https://b-ok.asia/book/959829/cfd848

3.    Textbook of Pharmacognosy and Phytochemistry by Biren Shah: This is an additional book with good information that you can refer if you want more in depth knowledge.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2353043/c87ccd

7.    Pharmaceutical Analysis

1.    Pharmaceutical Analysis by Ravi Shankar & Vogel's - Textbook of quantitative chemical analysis: Good and simple explanation for fundamental methods like titrations.

https://b-ok.asia/book/462057/1d97ea

2.    Introduction to Spectroscopy by Pavia: This is a great book for all spectrophotometric topics like UV, FTIR, NMR, etc. The values for IR functional groups, NMR ranges etc are important and refer them from this book.

https://b-ok.asia/book/602292/916e12

3.    Instrumental Methods of Chemical Analysis by Gurdeep Chatwal: This book covers almost all aspects of PA but the ones that are given really great are the chromatographic methods. You can use this for all other topics too because the content is thorough but written in an easy language.

4.    Fundamentals of Analytical Chemistry by Douglas A. Skoog: This book can be used as a supplement to Chatwal in most cases. 

https://b-ok.asia/book/2223830/9380af

8.    Biochemistry

1.    Biochemistry by Satyanarayana: This is one great book which is mostly more than sufficient to cover all the topics under this subject. The author has written the book in very easy language along with good diagrams and flowcharts where necessary. I used this book as my first go to when it came to this subject.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2565797/751aea

2.    Lippincott's Biochemistry: I always used this book as a secondary supplement along with Satyanaryana. It has certain topics where the theory is good but the best part is that the author represents information very nicely in the form of flowcharts and tables at the sides of the text. I would recommend you to go through this book too once you have covered the topic in Satyanaryana. This fact is actually true about all books published under the “Lippincott” name.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3632727/9fac0e

3.    Lehninger's Principles of Biochemistry: I used this book whenever I needed to get into advanced information related to biochem if I couldn’t find that information in Satyanarayana.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3341211/9fc644

4.    Review of Biochemistry by Rebecca James Perumcheril: This book is similar to the Garg Gupta book I mentioned for Pharmacology. It has all the key points covered in a very easy and short points. There are small boxes that highlight key points. I rarely used this book only in cases where I had insufficient time to go through Satyanarayana or when I disliked a certain topic.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3554692/e3bfac

9.    Biotechnology

1.    Biotechnology by Satyanarayana: This book is written by the same author as the biochem book and is an equally crisp and helpful book for most topics.

https://www.scribd.com/document/339404985/Biotechnology-by-Satyanarayana-LSA-Gwalior

2.    Biotechnology by Ashutosh Kar: This book is also one that is somewhere between being a textbook and a reference. Use it to find any additional information and for certain topics that you cannot find in Satyanarayana.

https://b-ok.asia/book/566248/482545

3.    Molecular Biotechnology by Glick and Pasternak: This is the advanced book for biotechnology that covers almost all the topics in great depth and details. Use this if you need more in depth knowledge. The diagrams given are very neat and simple. The theory is vast but once you start reading through it you realize that it is explained in easy language. 

https://b-ok.asia/book/1190532/88b5ba

10.    Microbiology

1.    Pharmaceutical Microbiology. by Dr. Chandrakant Kokare: This is actually a textbook but I would highly recommend this as the main base to go through microbiology. The language is very easy and it simplifies the task of learning this subject. The only catch is that this book is insufficient in the amount of knowledge and information it provides so you will need a proper reference along with you too.

2.    Microbiology by Gerard J. Tortora & Prescott's Microbiology: There are lots of references for microbiology but I always loved these two books. They’re big and fat but once you start using them, you will fall in love with these books. They are colorful and bright books with loads of nice photos and diagrams, some of them are really great and simplify the task of learning the whole point. I would always use these to note down any additional points that I couldn’t find in Kokare and to learn more about in depth about microbiology.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3507328/b97b10

https://b-ok.asia/book/3712548/01f2c4

3.    Review of Microbiology and Immunology by Apurba Sankar Sastry: This is also similar to the Garg Gupta book for microbiology but I have not really used it much. I used to love this subject and always preferred Tortora and Prescott for it. You can use this as a supplement to go over any important points you might have missed or to quickly revise a topic.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3554373/9f7de0

11.    Pathophysiology

The syllabus for this subject is divided into two parts where the first one covers topics under Immunology and the rest of it actual Pathophysiology

Immunology

1.    Pharmaceutical Microbiology. by Dr. Chandrakant Kokare: This was always a tricky subject for me but became easy when I studied from this book. Easy explanation and simple language helps us grasp most topics easily.

2.    Kuby’s Immunology: This is the advanced book I would recommend if you really want to delve into Immunology and gain additional information.

https://b-ok.asia/book/5010514/2e5d13

Pathophysiology

1.    Textbook of Pathology by Harsh Mohan: This is the standard book that you should use for pathophysiology. It is a complicated book but the theory is the best that you would get out there.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2577731/e12a11

2.    Basic & Clinical Pharmacology by Katzung: You’re probably wondering why am I mentioning a Pharmacology book here. This is one of the tricks that I figured out where I realized the author of this book has done a brilliant job at covering the pathophysiology aspect of each topic before actually getting into the pharmacology aspect of it. The language is simpler than what you’d find in Harsh Mohan and the information is more than enough.

https://b-ok.asia/book/3425339/11b612

3.    Robbins Basic Pathology: This is the advanced book that you can go through if you feel that you need more information regarding a certain topic. 

https://b-ok.asia/book/2950182/7277b6

12.    Biopharmaceutics

1.    Biopharmaceutics and Pharmacokinetics by D. M. Brahmankar: One small book that goes into great detail in covering all aspects of this subject. This book is more than enough to study the entire subject.

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzFLAnpHn_5cb3d3Mjg2S2lMWU0/view

2.    Applied Biopharmaceutics & Pharmacokinetics by Leon Shargel: This is a book that you can use as a supplement to Brahmankar in case you don’t understand a certain point or need more information. 

https://b-ok.asia/book/3361117/3378d3

13.    Human Anatomy and Physiology (HAP)

1.    Principles of Anatomy and Physiology by Tortora: This is a big fat reference for HAP and is more than enough to cover all the topics and information that is needed. It is a bright and colorful book with loads of pictures and beautiful charts/diagrams that make the learning process very easy. People also talk about Ross and Wilson but it has limited information and I have always found Tortora to be a better book when it comes to this subject.

https://b-ok.asia/book/2325042/2e46c9

2.    Anatomy and Physiology by Ross and Wilson: This is a similar book to Tortora but some people find this book to be easier. It does have certain diagrams which explain topics nicely so use this as a supplement to go over your topics once you’ve studied them from Tortora.

https://b-ok.asia/book/5207546/adb1f7

14.    Pharmaceutical Engineering

1.    Pharmaceutical Engineering by Subramanyam: A nice and small book that covers all the important topics in very concise and easy language. You will not find engineering to be a difficult subject once you have gone through this book. I have made my notes using this book where I have covered all the topics in about 13 pages as a quick summary and uploaded in the google drive folder.

https://archive.org/details/pharmaceuticalengineeringbycvssubramanyam

2.    Aulton's Pharmaceutics the Science of Dosage Form Design & The Theory and Practice of Industrial Pharmacy by Lachman and Lieberman: These books do not cover all aspects of engineering. But the chapters they do cover are given nicely with great diagrams and theory for referencing. 

15.    Jurisprudence

1.    Jurisprudence TechMax: We had this subject in my 7^th semester SPPU university and we used the local textbook. For most topics and questions asked from this subject in GPAT, a textbook you use for university exams will be more than sufficient in providing the key points.

2.    Forensic Pharmacy by C.K. Kokate and S.B. Gokhale: This book is similar to TechMax but there are certain topics where it provides additional information. Also the topics not covered by TechMax as per SPPU syllabus are nicely given in this book.

https://www.scribd.com/doc/297123914/Forensic-Pharmacy

3.    Forensic Pharmacy by N. K. Jain: This is a small book that I found really interesting to read jurisprudence from. The theory part of it is given in very good language that helps you understand the laws and the theory behind them.

16.    Dispensing and Hospital Pharmacy

1.    Dispensing Pharmacy by RM Mehta & Modern Dispensing Pharmacy by Atmaram Pawar: Both of these are good books to refer and cover all the pharmaceutical and posological calculation aspects needed to be learnt under this subject 

17.  Other books

1.    GPAT - A Companion by Nazma N. Inamdar: This is a book that covers past GPAT papers all the way from 1988 all the way up to the most recent ones. The 1^st half gives you past 10 year GPAT question papers and the 2^nd half covers the rest of the papers and their question subject wise. This book is a must have since if you manage to solve every MCQ (about 3500+ and I know this because I’ve counted and calculated how many of them are there) then that is more than enough practice to prepare you for the GPAT exam. The author has also given key points in the explanation for each answer which is a great way to revise.

2.    The Pearson Guide to GPAT: This book supposedly covers all the topics given under the GPAT syllabus but the theory part isn’t very detailed and is hardly reliable. Use this theory only as a last resort if you’re left with topics just a few weeks before GPAT exam. The best part is that there are MCQs given at the end of topic/subject. Solving these is a great way to assess how much you know and what do you need to revise. It gives you mock papers too.

https://www.scribd.com/document/386697707/The-Pearson-Guide-To-GPAT-and-o-Umang-H-Shah-SRJ-pdf

3.    Piyush GPAT Cracker: This is another big fat book that also supposedly covers all the topics as per GPAT syllabus. I have never found it reliable to study from this book because it is even worse than the summary you would make from a textbook. I would recommend Pearson if you do want a book like this. It also has MCQs at the end of each topic/subject and a few mock papers.

This has a been a really long post but I hope this has resolved most of your confusions regarding what references to use and makes your task easier. Do comment if you have any doubts and I’ll try my best to resolve them.