loved the history-struggled with the structure.. but felt they were right to include it ( )

ذلك الكون الخفي، المكون من الروابط الجزيئية بين الذرات، هو المسؤول عن بعض أكثر الأحداث أهمية في تاريخ البشرية.
يسرد الكتاب قصص هذه الجزيئات والمركبات مخرجاً إياها من مختبر الكيمياء ليضعها في سياق العالم المرئي الملموس. ( )

"Napoleon's Buttons" had the potential to be a most interesting book, covering discoveries of new materials, chemicals, and medicines over the past several hundred years.
Examples of topics covered include:
--- How European demand for the spice molecule piperine (the basic molecule of pepper) not only fueled early exploration, but also inspired the practice of buying and selling shares in the modern stock market.
--- How a minor housecleaning mishap and an exploding cotton apron led to the development of modern explosive and contributed to the photography and movie industries.
--- Why isoeugenol is the reason people who live in Manhattan can call themselves New Yorkers instead of New Amsterdamers.

But as the book's subtitle indicates, the stories get down to real details of the molecules.
And unfortunately for me, since I listened to the book in audiobook format, the verbal descriptions of the chemical compounds, and detailing how the carbon, oxygen, hydrogen atoms are bonded to each other was hard to visualize, and my mind quickly drifted.

For example, in one section on Polysaccharides, the author writes: Though we lack the enzyme that breaks down a beta linkage, we do have a digestive enzyme that splits an alpha linkage. The alpha configuration is found in the storage polysaccharides, starch and glycogen. One of our major dietary sources of glucose, starch is found in roots, tubers, and seeds of many plants. It consists of two slightly different polysaccharide molecules, both polymers of alpha-glucose units. Twenty to thirty percent of starch is made up of amylose, an unbranched chain of several thousand glucose units joined between carbon number 4 on one glucose and carbon number 1 on the next glucose. The only difference between and cellulose is that in amylose the linkages are alpha and in cellulose they are beta. But the roles played by cellulose and amylose polysaccharides are vastly different.
Amylopectin forms the remaining 70 to 80 percent of starch. It also consists of long chains of alpha-glucose units joined between carbons number 1 and number 4, but amylopectin is a branched molecule with cross linkages, between the carbon number 1 of one glucose unit and carbon number 6 of another glucose unit, occurring every twenty to twenty-five glucose units. The presence of up to a million glucose units in interconnecting chains makes amylopectin one of the largest molecules found in nature.

To be fair, diagrams of these long chained molecules are shown in the book, which can aid in understanding the text, but you're on your own when listening to the book without the visuals, it's hard to follow.

So clearly, the format, audiobook vs. print, played a part in my loss of attention. However, on the positive side, I found that by listening to the book as I went to bed ended up being an excellent way to fall asleep. As the reader droned on, I rarely stayed awake for longer than 60 seconds. Therefore, unless you have a true passion for chemistry, I found this book, in audiobook format, would be welcomed by insomniacs, but few others.
( )

A well-written discussion of molecules that have been important in human history: salt, olive oil, sugar, spices, all are discussed both in their historical significance and the way chemistry managed to synthesize these. A fun read even though it contains chemical formulae. ( )

Everything on Earth is made from the same handful of substances with properties that vary dramatically based on the proportions and structure of their combinations. Tiny changes have had enormous effects on human history, and we often don't know whether those changes are positive, negative, or both until well after the fact. At times overly simplistic, overall this book provides an intriguing perspective on how chemistry shapes our world.

This is one of the many excellent books we've discovered thanks to the Build Your Library book lists assembled by Emily Cook. If you're looking for great reads on tons of subjects for yourself or your children, I highly recommend checking out the Build Your Library homeschool curricula. ( )