The Disappearing Spoon: And Other True Tales of Madness, Love, and the History of the World from the Periodic Table of the Element is the first book published Sam Kean, a science writer of articles published in periodicals ranging from Psychology Today to Slate. Originally published in hardcover in 2010, a paperback followed almost exactly one year to the day later. The book met with most positive critical reviews with the locus of most negativity focused on the lack of focus. It is a book that seems to entertain and inform not through any specific unity of message but rather through a broader approach of committing to the idea of having a something of interest for everyone.
Which may, admittedly, be a strange thing to say about a book that is ostensibly narrowed down to a focus on the elements that make up the periodical table. But that is misleading. To suggest that Kean wrote a book about the elements constituting the periodic table is suggest that a chapter about radium is going to nothing more than another inspiring but tragic tale of Marie Curie with possibly a mention or two of those poor girls who died from using cosmetics spiced with radium to make their skin glow. But while the chapter covering radium does make the requisite stop Mrs. Curie’s lab, it also takes the reader into a lesser-known story by Mark Twain that pretty much qualifies as science fiction in its story of a devil made out the radioactive element. The book lives or dies on whether such anecdotes—most of which the average person likely isn’t familiar with—are of interest. Some will be and some won’t be and therein lies any problem with its focus.
Of course, for that average reader, the biggest obstacle facing Kean—as he himself has willingly admitted—starts well before getting to any story anecdote or element which causes them to lose focus and put the book down. The bigger obstacle is picking it up in the first place since the periodic table is one of those buzzwords one tends to learn in school that immediately triggers an emotional response. Those who looked forward to algebra class and chemistry lab will likely eagerly pick up the book while those who preferred English class should keep in mind it is a book about science, not a science book.
