Take a photo of a barcode or cover
A review by caroline77
Chemistry for Breakfast: The Amazing Science of Everyday Life by Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim
3.0
Dr. Mai Thi Nguyen-Kim wants to make chemistry accessible to all, but not just that: She also wants to get people excited about chemistry. With that in mind, she has a popular German-language YouTube channel dedicated to breaking down chemistry for the everyday person, and now she has Chemistry for Breakfast, a part memoir, part science book that's a far cry from a dry chemistry textbook.
Chemistry for Breakfast loosely follows one of Nguyen-Kim’s average days as she guides the reader through chemical explanations of familiar, basic things in an upbeat, conversational tone. She starts with breakfast and cooking an egg, explaining how heat works to transform this raw food into cooked food, and then goes about her day, which is filled with many opportunities to discuss various chemicals and chemical interactions. She covered topics as disparate as cell phone batteries and soap. What she chose to focus on for her lessons is a bit arbitrary, and the daily chronology gets muddled along the way, but Chemistry for Breakfast succeeds overall.
Some topics in this book are more interesting than others (when it comes to cell phone batteries versus “magic molecule” water, water wins hands down) and some explanations easier to understand than others; however, as far as I could tell, Nguyen-Kim broke down the explanations as well as she possibly could. I most enjoyed learning about chocolate and its relationship to dopamine and caffeine, as well as her step-by-step explanation of alcohol’s effects. Like everything else in this book, these are explained on the chemical level. The average reader is likely to know, for instance, that eating chocolate causes a dopamine hit but is less likely to know the actual mechanics of how dopamine interacts with other chemicals in the brain to create satisfaction. Similarly, everyone knows that alcohol weakens inhibitions and slows response times; many know that in excess it damages the liver; far fewer know how alcohols work or about their metabolic by-products. The book also drives home the fact that reality is governed, and limited, by certain scientific rules. For instance, because of molecular bonds unique to them, metal can be bent with application of heat, but a plank of wood can’t, and this can never change because these particular molecular rules are part of Earth’s reality.
Chemistry books need illustrations and Chemistry for Breakfast has small ones throughout. It could have benefited from even more and better, however. A few illustrations do their job perfectly, but it’s in the drawings that Nguyen-Kim showed that despite her great efforts to appeal to non-chemists, she’s still not quite on their wavelength. Too many illustrations show only the molecular structure of different chemicals. On the page, molecular structures look like complicated math equations. The structures fascinate Nguyen-Kim—who goes so far as to say she finds the structure of oxytocin beautiful—but to the everyday reader, whether chemistry-averse or not, these illustrations mean little. Other illustrations try but miss—the one of the three kinds of chemical bonds is unhelpful. A few are just cheerful and cartoonish, existing only to cute-ify the book.
I enjoyed Chemistry for Breakfast as well as I could given my hatred of chemistry—and also more than I thought I would. Although I didn’t absorb the book to the extent that the nitty-gritty, technical explanations are seared into my memory, I definitely learned and developed an appreciation for the subject, something I hadn’t felt before starting. Nguyen-Kim’s passion for the subject shines through, and I understood her explanation for why she loves the subject so much. As a chemist, she sees the world in a more minute way. She says “life is chemicals,” and her personal bugbear is the vilification of chemicals across the board, which she rightly says is reductive.
Chemistry for Breakfast does have science-heavy moments, so to get the most out of it readers should have at least some curiosity about the subject. Nguyen-Kim’s goal with this and her channel is to, as she says, “inspire in everyday people a passion for facts.” Chemistry for Breakfast isn’t perfect, but it works toward her goal and is a solid choice for non-chemists looking to broaden their intellectual horizons.
NOTE: I received this as a complimentary finished copy from LibraryThing in July 2021.
Chemistry for Breakfast loosely follows one of Nguyen-Kim’s average days as she guides the reader through chemical explanations of familiar, basic things in an upbeat, conversational tone. She starts with breakfast and cooking an egg, explaining how heat works to transform this raw food into cooked food, and then goes about her day, which is filled with many opportunities to discuss various chemicals and chemical interactions. She covered topics as disparate as cell phone batteries and soap. What she chose to focus on for her lessons is a bit arbitrary, and the daily chronology gets muddled along the way, but Chemistry for Breakfast succeeds overall.
Some topics in this book are more interesting than others (when it comes to cell phone batteries versus “magic molecule” water, water wins hands down) and some explanations easier to understand than others; however, as far as I could tell, Nguyen-Kim broke down the explanations as well as she possibly could. I most enjoyed learning about chocolate and its relationship to dopamine and caffeine, as well as her step-by-step explanation of alcohol’s effects. Like everything else in this book, these are explained on the chemical level. The average reader is likely to know, for instance, that eating chocolate causes a dopamine hit but is less likely to know the actual mechanics of how dopamine interacts with other chemicals in the brain to create satisfaction. Similarly, everyone knows that alcohol weakens inhibitions and slows response times; many know that in excess it damages the liver; far fewer know how alcohols work or about their metabolic by-products. The book also drives home the fact that reality is governed, and limited, by certain scientific rules. For instance, because of molecular bonds unique to them, metal can be bent with application of heat, but a plank of wood can’t, and this can never change because these particular molecular rules are part of Earth’s reality.
Chemistry books need illustrations and Chemistry for Breakfast has small ones throughout. It could have benefited from even more and better, however. A few illustrations do their job perfectly, but it’s in the drawings that Nguyen-Kim showed that despite her great efforts to appeal to non-chemists, she’s still not quite on their wavelength. Too many illustrations show only the molecular structure of different chemicals. On the page, molecular structures look like complicated math equations. The structures fascinate Nguyen-Kim—who goes so far as to say she finds the structure of oxytocin beautiful—but to the everyday reader, whether chemistry-averse or not, these illustrations mean little. Other illustrations try but miss—the one of the three kinds of chemical bonds is unhelpful. A few are just cheerful and cartoonish, existing only to cute-ify the book.
I enjoyed Chemistry for Breakfast as well as I could given my hatred of chemistry—and also more than I thought I would. Although I didn’t absorb the book to the extent that the nitty-gritty, technical explanations are seared into my memory, I definitely learned and developed an appreciation for the subject, something I hadn’t felt before starting. Nguyen-Kim’s passion for the subject shines through, and I understood her explanation for why she loves the subject so much. As a chemist, she sees the world in a more minute way. She says “life is chemicals,” and her personal bugbear is the vilification of chemicals across the board, which she rightly says is reductive.
Chemistry for Breakfast does have science-heavy moments, so to get the most out of it readers should have at least some curiosity about the subject. Nguyen-Kim’s goal with this and her channel is to, as she says, “inspire in everyday people a passion for facts.” Chemistry for Breakfast isn’t perfect, but it works toward her goal and is a solid choice for non-chemists looking to broaden their intellectual horizons.
NOTE: I received this as a complimentary finished copy from LibraryThing in July 2021.