The Bottom Line: I do not recommend this book for people with only a slight interest in chemistry. I do recommend this book for someone planning to pursue chemistry.
erinek's Full Review: John Emsley - Molecules at an Exhibition: Portrait...
The book “Molecules at an Exhibition” by John Emsley is exactly as the title portrays it to be. The book’s set up is one of which is broken down to categories (its galleries) and sub-categories (its portraits). Sadly, I did not enjoy reading this book. I found the cover and summary to be misleading. As a comparison, “Molecules at an Exhibition” at first glance is like an interesting preview to a horrible movie; it draws its consumer in and makes them believe they’re about to go on an exciting and fulfilling joy-ride but in reality are embarking on a long, tedious, painful journey through either a desert, a glacial area, or some other unappealing place to take a lengthy route through. I’ll admit, though I found the majority of the book to be extremely dull, there were a few interesting things to be found. For example, the shatterproof glass that was discovered led to the murder of its discoverer due to the selfish character of the man’s king. “Molecules at an Exhibition” is not only a book about science, but the history of the science and society as well. It’s no surprise that the parts of the book that interested me were more than not historical as opposed to the redundant numbers and figures of the redundant acronyms standing for chemicals.
Overall, if you’re reading this review because you’re contemplating purchasing “Molecules at an Exhibition” and are not thoroughly interested in blunt facts about molecules ending in “ium” and “illin” I don’t recommend reading this book. You’ll only waste who knows how many hours of your life nearly dozing off and counting how many more pages are left until the end of the book. On the other hand, if you’re planning on making chemistry your life, I have no problem saying this book has some valuable information that would be useful to have read or have around.
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