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The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales Of Madness, Love, And The History Of The World From The Periodic Table Of The Elements (2010)

by Sam Kean(Favorite Author)

3.88 of 5 Votes: 1

ISBN

0316051640 (ISBN13: 9780316051644)

languge

English

genre

History & Biography

publisher

Little, Brown and Company

review 1: An enjoyable pop history of the elements of the periodic table, which well complemented this year's crop of lovely science education programmes on the telly. Well explained, even the bits of chemistry that completely put me off the field in high school - I might have done things a bit differently if the history was mixed in with rote memorization! My main complaint is with the placement of footnotes. As a reader I was not well served by chucking them all in the back. It would have much better to embed them in the body of the text and take a hit on a few long ones or end note after each chapter (I'm looking at that lexographical digression in particular).
review 2: It is getting two stars instead of one or none because I must confess I did not actually read it e... morentirely. I just couldn't get through it. After The Ghost Map, The Invention of Air, The Double Helix, and other history of science books, I found I couldn't begin to slog through this (and I rarely let a book defeat me). I will try again, but read the other books I listed first if you want a good science read. less

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