The Disappearing Spoon
The infectious tales and astounding details in The Disappearing Spoon follow carbon, neon, silicon, and gold as they play out their parts in human history, finance, mythology, war, the arts, poison, and the lives of the (frequently) mad scientists who discovered them. --from publisher description
Stats for nerds
5recommend
8mentions
7people
2010–2024years
75% recommend25% neutral
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- I'm the exact opposite. I only purchase physical books that have a "timeless quality" to them - so that rules out 99% of tech specific books. Further, I'd vastly prefer a searchable PDF for some random O'Reilly book so I can work through the exercises at my computer easily.
The physical books I have are more like coffee table compendiums around a vast array of subjects that aren't intended to be read sequentially - I can just pick it up and start a random chapter and enjoy them for short sessions. Examples are The Disappearing Spoon, A Short History of Nearly Everything, The Violinist's Thumb, etc.
I'm glad you enjoyed "Pro Git" but that sounds like the kind of thing that I would use as a doctor to place a patient into a medically induced coma.
- I highly recommend this book as well. I am always on the lookout for technical books that have a good mix of history. One of my favorite examples is the "Disappearing Spoon", which is an engaging exploration of chemistry with stories. Biography of the Pixel is right up there with that.
- "The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Elements" by Sam Kean
- If you enjoyed this, I highly recommend “The Disappearing Spoon.” The title is a reference to Gallium’s low melting point, and the book has wonderful histories of most of the elements, and the table itself.
- There’s a good explanation/discussion on this in “The Disappearing Spoon.” It’s a fun read, on the history of the elements in the periodic table.
- I can’t resist the temptation to ask given this thread is on HN (a community I love) and Audible is a passion... for those who love Audible and Audio books, would you mind sharing 2-3 you particularly enjoyed? I’m always hunting for new ones. Here are some I would recommend:
Management
1. Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People
2. Getting to Yes Great book on negotiation in life and business
3. The Hard Thing About Hard Things On management
4. Influence The psychology of persuasion
Non-Fiction Recommendations
1. River of Doubt True story of Teddy Roosevelt's exploration of a previously unchartered region of the Amazon River where he and his team almost perished.
2. Endurance True story of Sir Ernest Shackelton's journey to be the first to reach the south pole. Arguably one of the greatest survival stories of all time.
3. The Disappearing Spoon Story behind the periodic table, the elements, the people who discovered them and the context under which they were discovered. Learn a lot about day to day things you don't put much thought into.
4. Business Adventures Bill Gates was interviewed and asked what his favorite business book is - this was it (out of print for 40 years until 5 months ago). It's a collection of about a dozen 1-1.5 hour true business case studies (20th century). A lot of them were seminal events in corporate America (for example, the event that resulted in modern day insider trading laws, the creation of the income tax, etc). You'll enjoy this if you like business books.
5. Creativity Inc by the cofounder of Pixar. Good story.
6. Alchemy of Air Story of the investors of the Haber-Bauche process to convert nitrogen in the air to ammonia (the key component of artificial fertilizer, gas and gunpowder). Arguably the greatest discovery of the 20th century if you take into account the fact without this process, Earth's arable land mass can only sustain 2bn people. It also has resulted in hundreds of millions of deaths by allowing wars to wage on indefinitely
7. A Short History of Nearly Everything A fast pace, well written science book by Bill Bryson that covers what we know about the creation of the world thus far. You'll enjoy it.
8. The Boys in the Boat Very inspiring story about the men's 1936 olympic gold metal rowing team
9. Shoe Dog by Phil Knight Very inspiring story by the creator of Nike. One of the best memoirs I've ever read.
10. Lessons of History by Will Durant Short and extremely thought provoking. Stylistically tough to get into but once you do it is quite good.
11. Ghengis Khan and the Making of the Modern World The first half of this is better than the second but overall a very enlightening book about the impact of the Mongols, broadly considered to be Barbarians but in actuality far ahead of their time (first to broadly use printed currency, a postal system, a judicial system, military engineers, etc).
Fiction / Fantasy Recommendations
1. The Martian Awesome story and as realistic as fiction can get. Was a great listen.
2. Theft of Swords great story about two lovable characters. It is part of a trilogy
3. Red Rising Part of a trilogy, great listen but worth caveating it is an extreme hunger games like story that is quite violent
4. Name of the Wind Epic fantasy adventure, one of the highest rated books on Good Reads. Absolutely worth it but at 30 hours may be a large commitment as a first book
5. The Way of Kings This book gave me heart palpitations... again, a large commitment but I can't drop it from the list
6. Lies of Loch Lomura A very fun adventure story; reader's voice takes a moment to get used to but once you do it is very fun and endearing
7. Mistborn Great story in a unique world
