Tim James (3)

When I started reading this I thought that it might be a bit simplistic. But I was very wrong. Tim James has managed to put together a really entertaining and interesting book....full of little asides such as the fact that arsenic in small doses is a treatment for leukaemia...and the world's smelliest chemical: thioacetone. (The sort of stuff that is bound to appeal to high school boys ...to whom the book is dedicated). But more than that, he actually goes into some of the details of chemistry such as atomic orbitals and explained some things about orbitals that had been puzzling me for ages. I really liked the book. Wasn't even put off by his jokes and humour...... because he actually manages to pull it off quite well. In some ways, this book is the story of the discovery of the various elements and reads a bit like a history cum detective story. (I was distraught with his description of the unluckiest chemist...Carl Scheele (who made a huge number of discoveries but through bad luck, poor timing etc ...never seemed to be given credit ....though he did have a mineral named after him....though later renamed...so he couldn't win)). I will be recommending this book to my 16 year old son. Whether he will take the time off from screen based games to read it is entirely another question....but I think it would be time well spent on his part. Happy to give this book five stars.… (mehr)