John Emsley - Molecules at an Exhibition: Portraits of Intriguing Materials in Everyday Life

Pros: A good resource
Cons: Not good at holding attention

The book “Molecules at an Exhibition” by John Emsley is exactly as the title portrays it to be. The book’s set up is one of which is broken down to categories (its galleries) and sub-categories (its portraits). Sadly, I did not enjoy reading this book. ...

Pros: Very factual
Cons: Gets quite dull

This book, “Molecules at an exhibition”, by John Emsley I could say that it could not entirely hold my interest. I would have to read a few pages but then put it back down and get back to it later. John set his writing up into galleries and ...

Pros: Very informative.
Cons: Long and tedious, sometimes boring.

I did not find Molecules at an Exhibition, by John Emsley, to be the "highly readable and entertaining" book that the "New Scientist" loved. Although some of the portraits, such as those about caffeine; nitric oxide; mistletoe; penicillin; ecstasy; cocaine, heroine, and designer drugs; nicotine; and all of the Elements from Hell were extremely interesting, entire galleries such as Testing your metal; Home, sweet home; Material progress and immaterial observations; Landscape room: environmental cons, concerns, and comments; and We're on the road to nowhere were nothing less that painful. I found myself counting how many pages I had to go until the book was over instead of enjoying myself reading the book. I wish that instead of reading the book for myself I had paid more attention to the first review of this book and not read the it all. As the first review stated, I would not recommend this book to anyone that does not wish to go into the field of chemistry. Although I believe it would be an excellent resource if you were doing a project on one of the many topics that it covers, I would not recommend that anyone read this book for pleasure.