The Periodic Table: An Essential Guide to Chemistry from Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics Series

Vianey Seáñez: Me llegó bien, con un pequeño doblez pero no siento que sea muy significativo. En cuestión de contenido, se ve bien, va a ser un regalo y leí muchas reseñas de este libro y se ve muy interesante. Espero tener la oportunidad de leerlo.

La portada está linda, tiene una textura muy peculiar que no había visto en otros libros.

Mexico on Dec 06, 2023

Anna: Book is fine but packaging is a problem obviously. It was supposed to be a gift. Careless!

Sweden on Dec 24, 2022

Willow: Quirky and insightful stories tied to elements describe Levi's life as a chemistry student and industrial chemist (skipping his experience in Auschwitz, which is described in his other books). Surprising, funny, and brilliant, with extraordinary language. A quiet masterpiece.

United States on Oct 30, 2022

Francis O Walker: The Periodic Table is a remarkable analysis of units of living, making a living and re-living. It is a series of essays, each regarding a specific element in the periodic table which is a springboard for digressions on their surprising roles in the world of the author and for metaphors about the relationships that matter to us as human beings. The lyrical quality of Primo Levi's prose comes through its elegant translation and each essay stands well on its own but together they build an observatory of human experience well worth being shared It transports the reader to times and places of significance which are conducive to sober reflection and understanding. A great read.

United States on Jun 11, 2021

Muhammad: This review is for the following particular paperback I purchased on Amazon Australia: Nothing wrong with purchase experience, and all fine- except that the book's physical size (and the print font) is too small for a comfortable reading.

Product Details are as follows:
Publisher : Penguin (General UK); 1st edition (12 June 2012)
Paperback : 202 pages
ISBN-10 : 02419 56811
ISBN-13 : 978 - 02419 56816
Dimensions : 11.1 x 1.3 x 18.1 cm

Translation from Italian to English is by Rosenthal.

The book is profound and the translation is great (originally it was Non-English).
I had ordered this book under the (fallacious) impression that this was about elements on the 'periodic table' . It is NOT. I was 'wrong' in that impression, however, I was 'RIGHT' in ordering this book. This book is about author's life journey (as a Jew who survived times of The Holocaust) and how he 'relates' and draws certain abstract - yet profound- parallels to certain 'elements' on the periodic table, and hence the book's rather unique title which may well be misleading for some.

The Reason I recommend Hardcover over this particular paperback:
1) Hard cover book...

Australia on Apr 02, 2021

bert: ottimo servizio sia per prezzo che per spedizione

Italy on Jun 30, 2020

David HDavid H: I came to this book expecting a more traditional nonfiction science book based on various elements that compose the periodic table. It was after all voted as the best science book ever in 2006 by the respected Royal Institution of Great Britain. In this respect I have to admit I was rather disappointed. The book comprises a series of autobiographical stories from Levi’s life. Each of these stories are inspired in some way by an element from the table. Nickel, for instance, tells the story of the chemical laboratories of a mine, Arsenic (a personal favourite) examines the analysis of a sugar sample (perhaps laced with arsenic) and silver the story of faulty photographic plates. While the majority of these stories are autobiographical in nature several, such as those of mercury and lead, are fictional. While some of the links to the periodic table are clear and front-centre others are more subtle. It is for this reason I was disappointed with the book as a science book in the strictest of definitions.

That said, though I expected something entirely different the book makes for a compelling, thoughtful and interesting read which gives an intimate insight into Levi’s life,...

United Kingdom on Apr 10, 2019

Subha87: Periodic table' is a chemist's blueprint of the fascinating elements that make up our world. It was insightful to read this biographical account by Primo Levi, a Jewish chemist in Auschwitz, both during and thankfully after Nazi atrocity. True to its name, the focus is on his adventures with chemistry - chemistry as a man's passion, as well as a means to sustain in a big bad world. Reading about chapters on different elements definitely piqued this organic chemist's interest. It was a down memory lane on archaic inorganic analysis from B.Sc. days. Admittedly decades back during the author's time, exposure awareness and safety concerns were near non-existant and some of Levi's trysts were jaw-dropping to me as a modern practitioner (much akin to walking a tightrope without safety net!). Life of a chemist in a very difficult historical period, synthesized out of various "element"al chapters - awesome!

United States on Oct 27, 2018

Kindle Customer: Primo Levi, similar to Elie Wiesel, is so closely associated in my mind with The Holocaust, and Holocaust literature, that I was surprised to find that in THE PERIODIC TABLE, Levi rarely touches on it directly. And yet, as a memoir of his life as a chemist both before and after Auschwitz, the entire book is freighted with the knowledge of his time in the camps; similar, perhaps, to a biography of a man born with a serious birth defect, and how this background knowledge forces the reader to reevaluate the simple tasks of living that he'd previously taken for granted. Simultaneously, as a part of Levi's entire oeuvre, I also had the feeling that THE PERIODIC TABLE was a statement, an affirmation by Levi, who HAD become associated so closely with The Holocaust, saying, in effect, `I am not Auschwitz. I am a chemist.'

Regardless, as others have noted, THE PERIODIC TABLE is a collection of stories--some true and some fiction, and each tied to one of the elements of the Periodic Table by some detail in the story. For instance, the first chapter, titled `Argon', contains a brief explanation of the group of gases that Argon belongs to--The Noble Gases:

"There are the...

United States on May 12, 2015

Schuyler Wise: No, this book will not teach you what you missed in Chem 101. It is instead a stirring memoir of an Italian Jew ,a chemist, who survived the years of Italian Fascism and the subsequent Nazi occupation, by the the force of his creativity and sensitivity to the harrowing events that befell him. The memoir feels like a set of short stories. Each chapter is named for a chemical element.
The use of this device was incredibly creative. In one case, Chapter 2 Hydrogen, the author recounts his teenage adventure with a friend, that generated hydrogen from water. In another chapter, Iron, the author describes his best friend and their mountain adventures. The friend seemed to have the qualities of Iron. Just as the elements have personalities- that is, they share, steal or give up electrons to form bonds with other elements, people also have personalities- resilient, affiliative, inert- and Dr. Levi draws parallels between these chemical and human personalities.
And what stories he has to tell. A romance that might have been. Surviving a death camp by making flints for cigarette lighters. Uncovering a Nazi in a postwar business relationship. 3 amazing chapters which are wholly works...

United States on Jan 07, 2013