My favorite immunology texts are listed below. Before studying immunology, you need to have studied chemistry (general, organic, and bio) and biology, especially cell structure and function. Some physiology wouldn't hurt either.

Immunology is a rapidly advancing field. Any textbook more than two years old will be seriously out of date. Remember that the author typically completes writing a text more than a year before it is published, and the author is relying largely on literature which was written more than a year before that.

Note: because these texts are updated often, the editions listed below may not be the latest. Check with the publisher. I've given up trying to maintain links to book-specific pages, because the publishers break the links every single year.

Here are some really short textbooks for those who want a quick conceptual overview without all the details.
• How the immune system works, by Lauren Sompayrac. Blackwell Science, 1999, 111 pages. A light, insightful treatment with a sense of humor. Used in my Infectious Disease and Defense (397I) course (for a segment representing 40% of the semester) in 2001.

• Immnology, by William L. Anderson. Fence Creek Publishing (Blackwell). 1999, 200 pages. Beware numerous errors in figures and text. Nevertheless, this is an up-to-date overview with a strong medical flavor, used in my Infectious Disease and Defense course (for a half-semester segment) in 1999 and 2000.

  The books below are a bit less than half the size of the comprehensive books below, better adapted to courses which cover the entire book in one semester. They are dense but well-written, providing a thorough introduction with plenty of details.

• Basic Immunology by Abul K. Abbas and Andrew H. Lichtman, Saunders, 2001. 309 pages, including 230 pages of text plus CD Appendix, Glossary, Clinical Cases, and Index. Highly recommended, excellent illustrations.

• Basic immunology by Jacqueline Sharon. Williams and Wilkins, Baltimore MD. First edition, 1998. 303 pages. Very well written. Some of the figures are poor in quality, though most get their point across effectively without fancy graphics. Used in Immunology (540) before 397I was introduced into the curriculum.

  The following comprehensive texts are longer and more detailed than is the previous one. All below are excellent.

• Kuby Immunology. W. H. Freeman & Co. Fourth edition, 2000. 670 pages. Following the untimely death of Janis Kuby from cancer, the next edition was updated by Barbara Osborne and Richard Goldsby of UMass and Amherst College, and Thomas Kindt of NIH, Bethesda MD. This is the largest-selling immunology text. It is the required text for Microbiology 540.

• Cellular and molecular immunology, by Abul Abbas, Andrew Lichtman, and Jordan Pober. W. B. Saunders. The fourth edition was published in 2000 with 553 pages. This was the required Microbiology 540 textbook until 1997.

• Immunobiology - the immune system in health and disease, by Charles Janeway, Jr. and Paul Travers. Garland Publishing, Inc. Fifth edition, 2001. 732 pages.

• Immunology by Ivan Roitt, Jonathan Brostoff, and David Male. Mosby, London. 6th edition, 2001. 480 pages, nearly 50% of which are illustrations. A bit more of a clinical flavor than the others.