The Disappearing Spoon...and other true tales from the Periodic Table

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Review ------ "...brimming with puckish wit ... his love for the elements is downright infectious ... He gives science a whiz-bang verve so that every page becomes one you cannot wait to turn just to see what he's going to reveal next."--Caroline Leavitt, Boston Globe "Kean has Bill Bryson's comic touch... a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery."--New Scientist "A non-stop parade of lively science stories... with the éclat of raw sodium dropped in a beaker of water."--New York Times "Unpacks the periodic table's bag of tricks ... with such omb and fascination that material normally as heavy as lead transmutes into gold ... the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell"--Entertainment Weekly "Only once in a rare while does an author come along with the craft and the vision to capture the fun and fascination of chemistry. The Disappearing Spoon is a pleasure and full of ins. If only I had read it before taking chemistry"--Mark Kurlansky, author of Cod and Salt "One of the most readable and entertaining books about science yet published ... [Kean] is master of enlightening metaphors"--Daily Express "This book is entirely entertaining - it's a real page turner, and there's very little not to like about the combination of a string of QI like fascinating facts with a whole slew of engaging stories ... a delight to read, taking a very predictable subject and approaching it in an entertaining, original and informative way ... if you want to be entertained and find out lots of history and fascinating facts around the elements themselves, this is the one for you."--Popularscience.co.uk "This book is the literary equivalent of a prime-time documentary on the Discovery Channel or BBC1: populist, accesible, and elementary (boom-boom!), without being simplistic ... You don't need to know your p from your d orbitals to understand, enjoy and learn from a book carefully written by an author keen to share his enthusiasm with a wider audience ... even for those of us with science backgrounds, The Disappearing Spoon remains diverting and entertaining ... The cast of characters makes it entertaining and accesible ... Given the lamentable state of education about science among the general public, we should applaud Kean's ability to bring chemistry to the masses."--Mark Greener, Fortean Times From the Publisher ------------------ Longlisted for the Royal Society Winton Prize for Science Books 2011