These are my impressions, take em or leave em:
260/99
General Review Book:
First Aid is a must - if it's in there, you must know it. Duh.
Step-Up: I liked it for its coverage of organ systems - so actually, I only used the first half of First Aid (up until the organ systems) and switched to Step-Up to cover the rest. Most will view this as a stupid step and useless - that's fine - i just prefer neat tables to the hose of information that First-Aid provides - seems more organized. This is really only useful for people as anal as me.
Biochem: Lippincott's is too big - use it only if you need the pictures (and a lot of people do). If you have imagination, use Rapid Review - it gave me what I needed - I used it to annotate the crap out of First Aid, and then ditched the book. Not sure what else is out there.
Micro: MMRS or Rapid Review - pick your poison (paragraphs or outline). I liked RR, once again, b/c I need order in my life.
Embryo, Histo, and Cell/Molec Bio: HY - not a whole lot of debate, so I'm not really sure what else is out there. I would not stress out about these b/c they are so low yield. Any more than a full day on any of these is wasted time that could be spent learning useful information! Strategy for me: I used FA and Step-Up as a guide for what to look up and study in the Embryo book. HY Histo was a beast - hopefully you will do it later on in your studying so you will already know the majority of information so you won't have to write/learn much. And as for HY Cell/Molec Bio, I recommend using it as light before-bed reading towards the end of the study period (if you do it in the beginning, you'll drown in the excess information that will likely be repeated in other books)
Neuroanatomy: HY or USMLE Roadmap (I prefer the latter - the essentials are presented with clarity and clinical vignettes prevent dryness)
Behav Sci: HY (BRS is overkill)
Alternatively: HY brain&behav has BOTH behav sci and neuroanatomy - it's what I used - I saved a couple bucks and it was complete and up to date!
Anatomy: USMLE Roadmap - once again, I prefer it to HY - you just can't beat those vignettes! Once again, however, this is low yield - defer to FirstAid for all you need to know for anatomy and then come to this book for whatever firstaid mentions.
Pharm: I cannot stress the importance of FA for this. It is critical. I had a hard time with pharm because I kept getting the drugs confused, so I also used Lange Flashcards - they have a little too much information, but just so long as you get the main info, it's great - plus, once again, the vignettes are priceless - i hope they come out with a new edition soon. I couldn't find a good pharm book - some use lippincott's - i say that's overkill. I tried Pharm Recall, but that was a little too much - i guess you're on your own if you want a real pharm book, but maybe FA and cards will be enough!
Path: This is hotly debated - Goljan may have a reputation, but I used BRS. It sure as hell wasn't pretty, but it was complete!
Phys: Some people might even skip this if they are strong in Phys - but I say you just can't beat costanzo!
I liken studying for boards kinda like spinning plates on sticks. The goal is to get the plates all up and spinning for test day. But, if you concentrate too much on one plate, other plates will fall (you'll forget other stuff) - so basically, your task is to, especially towards the end, keep diverse facts as fresh as possible as the day approaches.
