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
Available July 12
This is nonfiction to make you sound smart over summertime gin and tonics: the human history behind the periodic table. Science magazine correspondent Kean promises to tell us why Gandhi hated iodine, how lithium saved Robert Lowell's health but hurt his poetry and why mercury reveals where Lewis and Clark pitched their tents.