Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements

I keep this book by my bedside table, and read an element each night before falling asleep. It's loaded with factoids that will bring a smile to your face and amaze your friends. For example, did you know that even 0.5 microgram of Tellurium will give you bad breath for up to 30 hours? Or that Charles II died of mercury poisoning because he did alchemical experiments in a poorly ventilated room in his palace? I'm reading the book cover-to-cover, but I know that in the future I'll want to dip into it again and again.My only criticism, and it's minor, is that I wish the chapter headings (e.g., "Indium") contained the info summarized in the chemical element table (symbol, atomic number, atomic weight) at the end of the chapter.

This book is so much fun to read. Some might consider it not scientific enough, but for me, a person that reads a lot of scientific materials, it was a welcome change of pace. Emsley gathered many interesting facts about each element and presents them in a very delightful and organized manner. I put the book on my night stand and use it as bed-time story book. It's that good.

There's got to be a lot of folks out there like myself who at one point or another had some genuine interest in science as a topic but had that enthusiasm crushed by what passes for "science education" in our schools. Between nerdy and boring teachers in middle and high school and science texts whose only real point seems to be rendering the reading of statutory tax law or specifications for sewer pipe manufacturing seem exciting. People who were not necessarily destined to be scientists but who gladly would have dived into the subject had there been any incentive whatsoever to do so.Well, you can dive in to Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements by John Emsley and plan to stay as long as you want. This is science presented with the flair and wit that, if more widely employed, would make studying science a lot more palatable to many students.Emsley is a respected science text writer, so he knows the subject inside out. His aim here is to inform and entertain both. The elements appear alphabetically. Information encompasses the basics of the element's structure and abundance in the world, common uses, it's significance to human health and disease and the impact it has on our lives in general. There's a closing "Element of Surprise" that covey's an interesting fact about the substance.The essays are long enough to be informative and short enough to keep attention from wandering. This is the sort of book you can either read right through or leave around and sample every now and then.Overall, an excellent general guide and reference book students and their parent's can both enjoy and find useful.

John Emsley writes excellent books on chemistry and Emsley's The Elements [3rd Edition] is an indispensable guide to the chemical elements for scientists. However, a layperson delving into The Elements may find it tough going because of its myriad numbers and tiny tidbits of text. In Nature's Building Blocks, Emsley dispenses with most of the numbers and expands the tidbits of text into page length essays on each element. Even though the book is clearly a reference book, the section on each element is an enjoyable read. Each section is divided into subsections that relate the element's significance to the cosmos, humans, food, medicine, history, war, economics, the environment, and then ends with a section called the Element of Suprise [one element's suprise is that there is nothing that Emsley could find to say about it that was suprising]. This book contains the kind of information I need as a chemistry and earth science teacher in a high school to spice up discussions on the elements. All laypeople with an interest in chemistry need a copy of this excellent book. Every high school library in the country should have a copy of this book on their shelves.