The Disappearing Spoon...and other true tales from the Periodic Table

Kean has Bill Bryson’s comic touch… a lively history of the elements and the characters behind their discovery * New Scientist *A wealth of fascinating stories with a dazzling cast of heroes and villains. Written with gusto and backed by a mind-boggling amount of research, this is a real page turner – Robert Matthews * Daily Telegraph *One of the most readable and entertaining books about science yet published … [Kean] is master of enlightening metaphors * Daily Express *The periodic table meets the best-seller list with Sam Kean’s Disappearing Spoon, an engaging tour of the elements… with the éclat of raw sodium dropped in a beaker of water * The New York Times *the anecdotal flourishes of Oliver Sacks and the populist accessibility of Malcolm Gladwell * Entertainment Weekly *A superb read… This book stands comparison with Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table, and indeed of the two I prefer it * BBC Focus *This book is entirely entertaining - it’s a real page turner, and there’s very little not to like about the combination of a string of QI like fascinating facts with a whole slew of engaging stories… a delight to read, taking a very predictable subject and approaching it in an entertaining, original and informative way… if you want to be entertained and find out lots of history and fascinating facts around the elements themselves, this is the one for you * popularscience.co.uk *A science book you didn’t have to get beaten up in high school to read * Daily Beast *Only once in a rare while does an author come along with the craft and the vision to capture the fun and fascination of chemistry. The Disappearing Spoon is a pleasure and full of insights. If only I had read it before taking chemistry – Mark Kurlansky, author of “Cod and Salt”

Sam Kean spent years collecting mercury from broken thermometers as a child and now he is a writer in Washington DC. His work has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Mental Floss, Slate, Air & Space/Smithsonian and New Scientist. In 2009 he was a runner-up for the National Association of Science Writers’ Evert Clark/Seth Payne Award for best science writer under the age of thirty. He currently writes for Science. This is his first book.