An intelligent and often diverting walk through the periodic table, but one that prefers the anecdotal flourish to the clean argument chemistry deserves.
Hugh Aldersey-Williams has a pleasing instinct for the eccentric human stories that cling to the elements. He writes with energy and curiosity, and he clearly understands that chemistry is not merely a ledger of symbols but a civilisation of accidents, laboratories, minerals, industries and obsessions. At its best, the book makes the periodic table feel less like schoolroom furniture and more like a strange, glittering map of matter and desire.
Yet I cannot call it a wholly satisfying scientific book, because its pleasures are often those of accumulation rather than structure. Aldersey-Williams is happiest when moving from one anecdote to another, and while that produces a brisk, salon-like charm, it can also make the argument feel loose. Some chapters seem to depend on associational drift; they inform, certainly, but they do not always deepen. The periodic table is one of the great intellectual architectures, and I wished more often for a firmer sense of why this arrangement matters beyond its obvious cultural prestige.
He is strongest when chemistry remains visible. When he writes about discovery, naming, materials, and the odd careers of particular elements, he finds the right balance between accessibility and respect for complexity. I admired his resistance to the crude popular-science habit of pretending that wonder requires simplification. Still, the prose occasionally overreaches into decorative metaphor, as if one vivid comparison might substitute for precision. The result is readable, certainly, but not always exact in the way the subject invites and sometimes demands.
As a piece of literary science writing, then, it is uneven but undeniably agreeable. It has enough wit, knowledge and narrative tact to reward the patient reader, though not enough rigour or formal discipline to become definitive. I finished it informed, entertained, and mildly impatient with its reluctance to press harder on the chemistry itself. That is not a negligible achievement; it simply falls short of excellence.
Who should read this
Read this if you enjoy science writing that mixes history, travel, biography and material culture, and if you are content for chemistry to arrive by detour rather than by textbook clarity. Those seeking a tighter, more conceptually disciplined account of the periodic table should look elsewhere.
A personal note from Lindgren
I admired its curiosity more than I trusted its shape. For me, it is a book of attractive surfaces and genuine intelligence, but not one that quite earns the authority its subject deserves.
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