Nature's building blocks by John Emsley

The clear chirpy casual piece on each element with fresh detail for the stalest teacher has not dated in the eight years of the first edition. In re-read am still on Argon, Arsenic and Astatine, but again loved the introduction for its enthusiasm and am spellbound at the pattern and simplicity of the periodic table. A reminder that with the binomial theorem, evolution, relativity, networking and chaos, science can be simple in spite of the advances of quantum and complex systems.

My only sadness is that no better song than Tom Lehrer's Elements has appeared to tickle JE. Perhaps this dates him and me. Or perhaps we should rush to youtube, or revisit the chants of Hubert Alyea. My only suggestion for the second edition would be that JE's encyclopedic knowledge of poisons be applied rigorously to the pollutants so many chemicals become in the natural environment. The jury is of course still out on how much damage they do to us, but I note that my contacts in the chemical industry have become less comfortable over four decades with the unknown and known effects of officially innocuous molecules.

To be read in conjunction with Our Stolen Future, I fear. But not by grantologists.