If you could have only 3 textbooks which one would you pick?

[JimP]

This could cross a number of different categories here -- mine reflect many years of working in the pharmaceutical industry (as well as a healthy dose of cynicism).

1) Organic Chemistry (Morrison and Boyd) -- the standard undergraduate (but also vital for post-graduate use) textbook for all things related to the cornerstone of drug synthesis.

2) The Merck Index -- standard tome on all things pharmaceutical, including drugs themselves, biological targets, etc.

3) "The Clot Thickens" by Dr. Malcolm Kendrick. A brilliant and occasionally humorous treatise, supported by well-researched clinical data and statistics, on the true causes and factors of cardiovascular disease. Spoiler: it isn't "cholesterol" -- it never was. Also he illustrates, with clinical justification, the virtually complete lack of utility of statins (another spoiler -- they have no effect on mortality or indeed any significant effect on cardiovascular events -- you have to treat 100 people for five years to prevent a single heart attack or stroke -- but it doesn't stop foolish physicians who swallow the party line without question, from drinking the Kool-Aid (ie feeding the Large Pharma cash cow!)