A review by daniellekat
The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements by Sam Kean

Did not finish book. Stopped at 34%.
I feel bamboozled. I was expecting funny/exciting stories about the periodic table of elements. Instead, this was an in depth look at the discovery of each element with some world history thrown in. There was no general timeline or narrative being followed, just a rambling and bizarre storytelling of each discovery. This author made good use of a thesaurus and often came up with wildly unnecessary ways to state a point. I’m also pretty confused at who the target audience of this book is. I have some basic university-level understanding of chemistry but I found this both too basic at times and way too advanced/detailed.  

Expand filter menu Content Warnings