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Review title: Builds a strong foundation for advanced study
Product review: The key ideas in the book are very clear. As already pointed out, multiplicity of states is brought out as the central theme, and the concepts on entropy, temperature, free energy etc are derived lucidly from it. I've since read some advanced books on the subject or related ones (Feynman's graduate lecture notes on statistical mechanics and Fetter and Walecka come to mind) but whenever I find myself confused I go back to Kittel and Kroemer for the first principles, and that usually clears things up. One piece of general advice: it's always a good idea to have taken a course on multivariate calculus before going anywhere near statistical mechanics. Without knowing the difference between the partial and the total derivative for example, you'll end up with what looks like a disconnected heap of equations that all look alike.
