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Periodic Tales

The Curious Lives of the Elements

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Periodic Tales

By: Hugh Aldersey-Williams
Narrated by: John Sackville
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Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Periodic Tales by Hugh Aldersey-Williams, read by John Sackville.

Everything in the universe is made of them, including you.

Like you, the elements have personalities, attitudes, talents, shortcomings, stories rich with meaning.

Here you'll meet iron that rains from the heavens and noble gases that light the way to vice. You'll learn how lead can tell your future while zinc may one day line your coffin. You'll discover what connects the bones in your body with the Whitehouse in Washington, the glow of a streetlamp with the salt on your dinner table.

Unlocking their astonishing secrets and colourful pasts, Periodic Tales is a voyage of wonder and discovery, showing that their stories are our stories, and their lives are inextricable from our own.


'Science writing at its best. A fascinating and beautiful literary anthology, bringing them to life as personalities. If only chemistry had been like this at school. A rich compilation of delicious tales'Matt Ridley, Prospect

'A love letter to the chemical elements. Aldersey-Williams is full of good stories and he knows how to tell them well'Sunday Telegraph

'Great fun to read and an endless fund of unlikely and improbable anecdotes'Financial Times

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This is a beautifully written and read book. The writer's love and fascination for chemistry comes through throughout. Its appeal to me was that it's focus is not just elemental facts and dates but on the more human side of discovery, ingenuity and use.

A great series of tangential elemental stories.

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Book is very interesting, I liked to listen to it while driving in the car.

Captivating and useful

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Great book, worth a listen. Such Interesting subject matter and well sectioned. Five star no question

Great

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M own fault for not reading about this book properly, but it was much more of a story/history than I expected - a fact made clear right from the start of the book by the author.

I still enjoyed the tales. Wasn't what I expected, but learned a lot about science history and still some interesting chemistry notes thrown in.

More of a story than science, but interesting

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I have never re read a book in my life until now, wonderfully written so fluidly, very listenable narrator too,

wonderful

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