The Chemistry World book club
Book Club - A Taste for Poison
Learning about chemistry through poisons and murders
Book club – Fresh Banana Leaves by Jessica Hernandez
An Indigenous vision for environmental science
Book club – Racing Green
Motorsports are saving the world
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Book club – Sticky by Laurie Winkless
Delving into the mysterious science of surfaces
Book club – Her Hidden Genius by Marie Benedict
The full story of the discovery of DNA’s double helix
Book club – Murder isn’t Easy by Carla Valentine
Delving into Agatha Christie’s pioneering forensic writing with special guests Raychelle Burks and Kathryn Harkup
Book club – Life as We Made It by Beth Shapiro
A DNA researcher tells the story of how humans have shaped the evolution of living things on Earth
Book club – The Icepick Surgeon by Sam Kean
How far would you go in the name of science?
Book club – Deep Sniff by Adam Zmith
A history of a drug – and the queer community
Book club – Lessons from Plants by Beronda Montgomery
What would a plant do?
Book club – Science in Black and White by Alondra Oubré
Exposing racially biased research by delving into the nature versus nurture debate
Book club – Vampirology by Kathryn Harkup
A scientific investigation of vampires’ lust for blood and weakness to garlic
Book club – Handmade by Anna Ploszajski
Uncovering the hidden facets of popular material
Book club – The Disordered Cosmos by Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
Exposing how racism and sexism shapes science
Book club – Never Mind the B#ll*cks, Here’s the Science by Luke O’Neill
Serious punk rock science
Book club – The Poison Trials by Alisha Rankin
Clinical trials have come a long way since the 16th century
Book club – Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks
We celebrate 20 years of a popular chemistry classic – written by neurologist
Book club – Science books for children
Three families take on four books for young readers
Book club – Written in Bone
From the horrific to the absurd, forensic anthropologist Sue Black’s new book is a true pageturner
Book club – The End of Everything
It’s the end times for our universe with five scenarios that of how it might meet its ultimate demise
Book club – United We Are Unstoppable
60 young climate activitsts from 41 countries tell their stories of fighting for a sustainable future
Book club – Half Lives by Lucy Jane Santos
From radioactive spa treatments to liquid sunshine, this book traces a forgotten part of chemistry history
Book club – Three books on pandemics
We’re tackling the coronavirus information overload by discussing and comparing three books that offer different views on pandemics past and present
Book club – The Alchemy of Us by Ainissa Ramirez
Materials scientist Ainissa Ramirez’s new book uncovers the human side of world-changing inventions
Book Club – Smoke & Mirrors by Gemma Milne
Science journalist Gemma Milne’s first book promises to be a guide on how to recognise hype and how to cut through it
Book Club – Ingredients by George Zaidan
We discuss George Zaidan’s Ingredients, a book that promises to make chemistry more fun than Hogwarts
Book Club – Say Why to Drugs by Suzi Gage
We discuss Suzi Gage’s comprehensive look at the science behind recreational drugs – from caffeine to ketamine
Book Club – You Look Like a Thing and I Love You by Janelle Shane
We talk about Janelle Shane’s dive into the depths of AI weirdness
Book Club – Antimony, Gold, and Jupiter’s Wolf by Peter Wothers
We talk about chemist Peter Wothers’ first popular science book that uncovers the surprising origins of the elements’ names
Book Club – Transcendence by Gaia Vince
We discuss prize-winning author Gaia Vince’s new book Transcendence, and discover how collaboration made humans Earth’s most successful species
Book Club – Language Unlimited by David Adger
We discuss linguist David Adger’s book that delves into the origins of human language and tries to uncover the hidden structure behind what we say (or sign)
Book Club – How to by Randall Munroe
We discuss xkcd comic creator Randall Munroe’s new book that deals out absurd – but scientifically accurate – advice for everyday problems
Book Club – The Chemical Detective
Fiona Erskine combines chemistry and conspiracy in a fast-paced thriller that takes in Chernobyl and Slovenia
Book Club – Superior: The Return of Race Science
How different from each other are we all really? Angela Saini looks at the issues, claims and evidence behind race science
Book Club – The Periodic Table
100 years on, we examine the effect of Primo Levi’s masterpiece The Periodic Table
Book Club – Superheavy: Making and Breaking the Periodic Table
Kit Chapman explores the strange, complex and downright confusing world of superheavy elements
Book Club – Clearing the air
Tim Smedley travels the world to work out why air pollution occurs, and what we can do to solve the problem
Book Club – The truth about fat
‘Angry chef’ Anthony Warner wants you to understand why people really get fat and how society tricks us into blaming each other
Book Club – Humble Pi: A Comedy of Maths Errors
Matt Parker uses comedy to explore the unique relationship between humans and maths and how numbers are behind errors large and small
Book Club – Inventing Ourselves
Cognitive neuroscientist Sarah-Jayne Blakemore explores the unique period of brain development that occurs during adolescence
Book Club – Gene Machine: The Race to Decipher the Secrets of the Ribosome
2009 Nobel prize winner Venki Ramakrishnan takes us on a personal and professional journey to uncover the secrets of the ribosome
Book Club – I’m a Joke and So Are You
Comedian Robin Ince explores what makes us human through conversations with fellow comics and scientists whose job it is to understand the human condition
Book Club – Losing the Nobel Prize
Physicist Brian Keating lost the Nobel Prize, then went on to re-evaluate its worth and examine how it could be improved
Book Club – Liquid
Mark Miodownik on the delightful, dangerous and downright strange liquids that flow through our lives
Book Club – Cat Zero
Science fiction as written by a scientist
Book Club – The Beautiful Cure
Immunologist Daniel Davis reveals the complexities of the human immune system
Book Club – Unthinkable
Helen Thomson looks at some of the rarest neurological conditions known to science
Chemistry World Book Club at the Hay Festival
Emma Stoye seeks the science at the world famous Festival of Literature & Arts
Book Club – Seeds of science
Mark Lynas on his journey from anti-GM activist to advocate
Book Club – Enlightenment Now
Steven Pinker explains how humanity is doing better than we might at first think
Book Club – The element in the room
Helen Arney and Steve Mould take us on a DIY journey through science
Book Club – Testosterone rex
Cordelia Fine explores the myriad myths about surrounding equality
Book Club – More molecules of murder
John Emsley returns with a new batch of deadly compounds
Book Club – Chemistry
First-time novelist Weike Wang takes us inside the mind of a Chinese American PhD student in Boston
Book Club - The angry chef
Do you crave a bigger slice of science in your dietary advice? Anthony Warner gets angry about bad science in the food sector
Book Club - A crack in creation
The development of Crispr, and the ethical questions raised by new genome editing techniques
Book Club - A course in deception
Academia has everything from altering results to murder, at least in this work of fiction
Book Club - Frankenstein
If you’re thinking of making a monster from dead body parts then this week’s book club podcast is for you
Book Club - We have no idea
Everything you need to know about everything we don’t yet know
Book Club - The death of expertise
Apparently we’ve all had enough of experts. We discuss how we came to think we know it all
Book Club - Bring back the king
We discuss Bring back the king by Helen Pilcher and learn of the difficulties and possible benefits of bringing animals back from extinction
Book Club - The telomere effect
The active steps you can take to live longer and younger
Book Club - The master algorithm
Driverless cars and bloodless wars are just two of the promises of machines that learn, the subject of this month’s podcast