Reading Older Books: “The Periodic Table” by Primo Levi

I picked up the Penguin Classic version of Primo Levi’s The Periodic Table (195 pp) in Wellington’s Marsden Bookshop, just prior to Christmas 2020, and was fascinated by the idea of using the periodic table to chart the course of a life.

And because the author was a chemist, as well as having lived through some of the 20th century’s most turbulent times, including surviving Auschwitz, I thought it would appeal to the science-and-history aficionado in my life.

A view in which I was mistaken, as ...