Even if you took chemistry in college, you'll likely come across plenty of new concepts in the last 100 pages of this book. Kean does a great job giving us a crash course in the way atoms operate, but I still found myself getting lost in some of his brief descriptions of chemical processes.

That being said, the tales about the elements that Kean chooses are absolutely fascinating. He does a good job including key women in his stories and he fuses this human element with universal concepts surrounding the periodic table.