Penguin

Funny summary: Author copes with his dad's death by writing a book

Long summary: Poisons, the book is about poisons. Not so much about cynacide or rat poisons but black pepper, chili, morphine and the likes of plants making pesticides that eventually became our food cordiments and medication. The book had some really interesting biology facts and the author tries his best to connect many anecdotes to spice up the reading/writing process.

Note: The cover of this book is very pretty.

Book was interesting at the beginning but somehow felt like I could had read the rest on wikipedia. I liked that the author included how emoji started in Japan and included emoji throughout the book to specifically tell the reader 'I mean this emoji' but think it was a bit underwhelming at the later half of the book. I personally think the author could had used better examples about emoji usage from around the world instead of only focusing on celebrities or US-UK examples but I understand being based in a different country might have its challenges. The repeated arguments in the book about racism and representation was a bit bland and definitely focused on western reading audience. I also felt like the author could had tied the ending better to relate it back to Japan to nicely wrap it up.

Great book with great writing about the deep sea.

Plastics are bad but the authors of this book puts into perspective why plastics and the chemicals that make it makes it bad.