Rating: 
Summary: A good, comprehensive reference.
Review: A comprehensive reference book on all the elements in the periodic table. Well researched and presented. Definitely reference bookshelf material.
Rating: 
Summary: A chemist's book of bedtime stories
Review: Although it looks like a textbook, "Nature's Building Blocks" reads like a collection of bedtime stories -- fascinating information about each of the elements, including things that are common-sense but you may never have thought of and stuff that's just gee-whiz cool and unexpected. Like a collection of bedtime tales, you needn't start at the beginning and go to the end -- you can pick any element you like and enjoy the delicious nuggets of information.The book suffers from a disturbing number of awkward sentences -- it deserves a much better copy editor for the next edition! This won't replace a chemist's CRC Handbook for sheer amounts of data, but unlike CRC it's a heck of a lot of fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: A chemist's book of bedtime stories
Review: Although it looks like a textbook, "Nature's Building Blocks" reads like a collection of bedtime stories -- fascinating information about each of the elements, including things that are common-sense but you may never have thought of and stuff that's just gee-whiz cool and unexpected. Like a collection of bedtime tales, you needn't start at the beginning and go to the end -- you can pick any element you like and enjoy the delicious nuggets of information. The book suffers from a disturbing number of awkward sentences -- it deserves a much better copy editor for the next edition! This won't replace a chemist's CRC Handbook for sheer amounts of data, but unlike CRC it's a heck of a lot of fun to read.
Rating:
Summary: This book is a blast!
Review: I keep this book by my bedside table, and read an element each night before falling asleep. It's loaded with factoids that will bring a smile to your face and amaze your friends. For example, did you know that even 0.5 microgram of Tellurium will give you bad breath for up to 30 hours? Or that Charles II died of mercury poisoning because he did alchemical experiments in a poorly ventilated room in his palace? I'm reading the book cover-to-cover, but I know that in the future I'll want to dip into it again and again. My only criticism, and it's minor, is that I wish the chapter headings (e.g., "Indium") contained the info summarized in the chemical element table (symbol, atomic number, atomic weight) at the end of the chapter.
Rating:
Summary: Fabulous!!
Review: I read this book one element at a time. Organized from A to Z, it does not follow a chemically logical sequence, but provides varied and entertianing reading. Each element gets a little history and finishes with some interesting or funny story about it. This is a pleasurable read and I will hang on to it to use as a simple reference book for my grade school aged children
Rating:
Summary: A Book I've Been Looking For!
Review: I was looking for a good book on the elements over the last few years and kept drawing a blank. The few I found were too technical, too simple, or involved strange treatments. Than I found this book! It was exactly what I wanted. A complete treatment of the elements of the periodic table alphabetically arranged. When I first found it I thought I would test it out by checking a rather obscure biological fact- certain tunicates (ascidians) concentrate vanadium in their blood. On p. 486 I found the reference with one error- Ascidia was called a "worm" (it is a Urochordate). However, the author made up for this by noting under copper that snails, spiders, octopi and oysters utilize that element as part of an oxygen-carrying blood pigment, making their blood pale blue. Other entries were just as fascinating. The sections for each element cover such subjects as human involvement (biologically- including food and medicine), history, economics, environmental associations, chemical properties and "Element of Surprise" - little known facts regarding the element in question. Where else could you find the origin of Teflon, the history of lead, the use of a salt of nitrogen to inflate airbags, or that thorium oxide was injected into patients during early X-ray diagnosis? These, and a host of other facts, are presented in exacting detail in "Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements." This is a very much-needed book for anybody requiring a good reference on the chemical elements. It is also a very good read!
Rating:
Summary: Great as a reference and as fun reading
Review: If you have even a passing interest in chemistry, this book is a lot of fun. You will learn a wealth of interesting facts about the chemical elements, each treated in its own section. It turns out that even obscure elements often have their specific uses important to our lives. The book is ideal as a nightstand book because of its short sections on each element; read a few each night before going to sleep and you'll end the day with a little more knowledge of how the world works.
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Summary: Elemental, My Dear Emsley!
Review: John Emsley writes excellent books on chemistry and Emsley's The Elements [3rd Edition] is an indispensable guide to the chemical elements for scientists. However, a layperson delving into The Elements may find it tough going because of its myriad numbers and tiny tidbits of text. In Nature's Building Blocks, Emsley dispenses with most of the numbers and expands the tidbits of text into page length essays on each element. Even though the book is clearly a reference book, the section on each element is an enjoyable read. Each section is divided into subsections that relate the element's significance to the cosmos, humans, food, medicine, history, war, economics, the environment, and then ends with a section called the Element of Suprise [one element's suprise is that there is nothing that Emsley could find to say about it that was suprising]. This book contains the kind of information I need as a chemistry and earth science teacher in a high school to spice up discussions on the elements. All laypeople with an interest in chemistry need a copy of this excellent book. Every high school library in the country should have a copy of this book on their shelves.
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Summary: Emsley brings an element of sanity to science writing.
Review: There's got to be a lot of folks out there like myself who at one point or another had some genuine interest in science as a topic but had that enthusiasm crushed by what passes for "science education" in our schools. Between nerdy and boring teachers in middle and high school and science texts whose only real point seems to be rendering the reading of statutory tax law or specifications for sewer pipe manufacturing seem exciting. People who were not necessarily destined to be scientists but who gladly would have dived into the subject had there been any incentive whatsoever to do so. Well, you can dive in to Nature's Building Blocks: An A-Z Guide to the Elements by John Emsley and plan to stay as long as you want. This is science presented with the flair and wit that, if more widely employed, would make studying science a lot more palatable to many students. Emsley is a respected science text writer, so he knows the subject inside out. His aim here is to inform and entertain both. The elements appear alphabetically. Information encompasses the basics of the element's structure and abundance in the world, common uses, it's significance to human health and disease and the impact it has on our lives in general. There's a closing "Element of Surprise" that covey's an interesting fact about the substance. The essays are long enough to be informative and short enough to keep attention from wandering. This is the sort of book you can either read right through or leave around and sample every now and then. Overall, an excellent general guide and reference book students and their parent's can both enjoy and find useful.
Rating:
Summary: Great book - lousy copy editor
Review: This book is as great as all the other reviewers say. It's the kind of book that's fun to explore -- each entry is self contained, and there are also a few short sections on the elements in general (for example, a history of the periodic table). The only negative comment I have is the poor copy editing. There are numerous spelling and grammatical errors. In the periodic table section alone, on one page, there were three spelling errors and three numerical errors. Needless to say, this is a especially problematic with a reference work...
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