The Periodic Table by Primo Levi

Largely a memoir of the years before and after Primo Levi's transportation from his native Italy to Auschwitz as an anti-Fascist partisan and a Jew, this book recounts, in clear, beautiful prose, the story of the Piemontese Jewish community from which Levi came, of his years as a student and young chemist at the inception of the Second World War, and of his investigations into the nature of the material world. It provides crucial links and backgrounds, both personal and intellectual, in the tremendous project of remembrance that is Levi's gift to posterity. But far from being a prologue to his experience of the Holocaust, Levi's masterpiece represents his most impassioned response to the events that engulfed him. It celebrates the pleasures of love and friendship and the search for meaning, and stands as a monument to those things in us that are capable of resisting and enduring in the face of tyranny.--From publisher description.

It is a perfect memoir, the author highlighted the fragments of his life which is the basic skeleton of his likelihood. The way he incorporated so many chemistry metaphors with his philosophical and psychological views was a joyous read for me. Each of the chapter titles and the contents had deep(sometimes shallow) connections throughout the book although The second fable he incorporated in the middle section was kind of broke the sequence for me and it felt unnecessary

Now onto my personal opinion- I would be much more delighted if the chemistry portion was highlighted much more here since I was very much looking forward to reading the science bit in every chapter, some of the chapters seemed a bit dull to me which had very minuscule chemistry on it. But I suppose it has the perfect balance for someone who isn't too interested in the science part or has a hard time understanding it. Still, I wanted more science bits since the Royal institute awarded it ‘Best science book of all time'

I especially liked how he incorporated his scientific philosophy into his regular life too which is always fun to read because I could see from this book how passionate he was about chemistry. my favourite chapters were Nitrogen and Carbon, also the part where the synthesised fats in Auschwitz
3.75 for me .......okay maybe 4.

This book is such a good read! I am sadly not too interested in the parts about chemistry or trying to understand it but I loved how Levi connected the elements with life, making analogies.
I love the writing though, the stories about WWII are so sad and tragic at times, pulling at my heartstrings. Most of the time the chapters/stories were a bit too short for me, I always need some time to get attached and this book barely gave me the chance to do so.

Can I give 10 stars to a book? As a sucker for good style, I'm amazed at how clean and beautiful the language of this book is (I read it in Italian, so I cannot say how good the other translations are). I love when a book is able to marry great content with innovative structure to generate a timeless exercise of style. As a technology guy (not a chemist) I'm fascinated by how unapologetically geeky Primo Levi gets into this book, while transmitting a never boring enthusiasm for his work. As a person who has already read “If this is a man” I marvel at the fact that a single person was able to write two masterpieces in his lifetime and that they are so different from each other. One of the most original pieces of art I came across. Primo Levi is now up there with my other heroes and he makes me feel proud to have been born in the same country as him.