Periodic Tales: A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc | 
pickAldersey-Williams takes readers along on his quest to collect all of the elements in the periodic table. While a slog at times, this book highlights the humanity of scientific discovery---the ego and the ambition, the odd mix of hubris and humility that leads to the conviction that everything is ultimately knowable, and the sometimes shocking carelessness of chemists in pre-OSHA days---and makes me wonder what's tinting my sunglasses.
107°F. Good day to let my coffee go cold and read. I've been reading this one for months now. Time to finish it up.
pickThis is a brief survey of the majority of elements comprising the periodic table, the stories of their discovery and their cultural and historical significance. The vignettes within span from ancient Egypt to industrial Britain, from the 1669 alchemical lab of Hennig Brand who boiled down 50 buckets of urine in attempt to isolate gold, to the neon lights of 1950s Las Vegas. It‘s a fun read, best taken in small doses.
Until last week when I read Wakenhyrst by Michelle Paver, I hadn't heard of Broadmoor psychiatric hospital (the only Broadmoor I knew was a wildlife sanctuary in Massachusetts), and here it pops up again. Reading coincidences tickle me inordinately.
"Civilization, it is immediately apparent, is simply organized resistance to oxidation."
"Oxidation betrays the march of time and the inevitable triumph of entropy."
I love Aldersey-Williams's sweeping statements in this book.
Side note: "The Inevitable Triumph of Entropy" is a title I'm considering for my memoir. (If I ever write a memoir.)
"In Ernest Hemingway's The Snows of Kilimanjaro, a man dies at length on the mountainside because he has failed to put iodine on his injured leg. The cause of death, it is made clear, is not the original accident but the man's failure to apply treatment; it seems he subconsciously chooses death because it offers him an escape from that worst of Hemingway fates, the forming of a mature human relationship."
"...more than ninety per cent of the charcoal supplied for this market [barbecue grilling] comes from abroad, much of it as the by-product of uncontrolled timber extraction in the tropical forests of West Africa, South-east Asia and Brazil." (p 65)
Until today, I'm not sure I ever wondered where charcoal comes from. And I certainly had no idea that "Brazil" comes from the Portuguese word for "hot coals."
From the prologue: "Like the alphabet or the zodiac, the periodic table of the elements is one of those graphic images that seem to root themselves for ever in our memories."
#FirstLineFridays @ShyBookOwl
1. Physical books.
2. Library (I love libraries!)
3. Yes.
4. Libby or libro.fm
5. I rarely check out one book at a time, but this was in a bunch I got recently for homeschool chemistry and history.
@laurenslibrary #thursdaysurvey
This book has been on my physical TBR pile for months. I own it. But I‘m going to be travelling, so I just got it from my library‘s electronic database because ebooks are much easier to transport. So tell me, Littens ... have you ever done this? (Please tell me I‘m not the only one.)
so-soI really wanted to live this. A look at the cultural and social meaning as well as the history and discovery of elements? Count me in! Unfortunately it was very uneven, some of the insights were strong and fascinating (chlorine) others were rambling and thin with odd conclusions. A mixed bag overall
Never let it be said that television shows have no educational (or “sustaining” as they used to say) value. Tonight I was watching the episode of Breaking Bad in which the image above occurs (photo from AMC) and I was seized (as Walter White‘s students, alas, are not) by the desire to know more. Thus I turned to my ereader and there found the tagged book, languishing unread. And it‘s fascinating! 💚📚
Partially book related. Went to the bookstore yesterday. Their single bookshelf housing English books was a disappointment, as always. (Mainly books I've read already.)
But they had these espresso cups and I couldn't walk by. Reminded me of the tagged book and the story about Napoleon being poisoned with arsenic.
#nonBookHaul
#nonfiction books for the #5555giveaway
You are amazing! @Booksandcooks
I love reading nonfiction from time to time, especially when I'm on a train - it just makes me look so nerdy.
Sorry for the blurry picture.
I picked some #non-fiction for today.
You might take a wild guess as to what I studied and am teaching. 😁
#AprilBookShowers #subtitles
@RealLifeReading
