Periodic Tales
A Cultural History of the Elements, from Arsenic to Zinc

Updated 6/29/13 - see link at bottom This book is one of the reasons people will occasionally look at you, slack-jawed, and say “How did you know that?” There are a few greater feelings in life, but not many. A-W picks a few dozen of the 118 known elements and tells us a bit about them, offering stor......more

This is a book about science for people that are not scientists. To pick this up you need to enjoy history and cultural connections in addition to chemistry. Periodic Tales could have been a painfully dull exercise but was anything but. Aldersey-Williams begins with a little discussion of his own ch......more

The author goes off in too many directions with his story-telling for me to want to stick to reading his book. I read over a hundred pages and can't seem to find it interesting due to how the author goes about writing it. From memories of gathering as many elements of the periodic table during his c......more

This wasn't quite as engaging to me as the blurb and the reviews quoted on the cover suggests -- in fact, it started to feel rather meandering -- but it is quite an interesting read, covering both the scientific history of elements, how and when they were discovered, and the social histories, why th......more

Was Napoleon murdered by arsenic poisoning on St. Helena? Probably not, though a significant amount of it was later found in his body – arsenic was widely used during the nineteenth century to make a vivid green color, and was frequently found in common household items such as wallpaper. Was there a......more