The Genie in the Bottle: 67 All-New Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life

Here is a book for everyone who has a natural scientific curiosity - a well-written and entertaining look at the chemistry of everyday life. Dr. Schwarz has taken Chemistry, food and magic tricks and rolled them all together in order to create an entertaining read.To name just a few of the topics covered.While cooking peas- how can you make them more GREEN - and why does it workThe chemical benefits of flax seed oilWhy magicians can NOT bend things with thought power alone.The history of Mercury poisoningWhy things are "hot" to taste and how this can be used against bugsAs you can see the list of topics is both broad and entertaining. Amazingly, Dr. Schwarz does not get us caught up in very in-depth chemical equations/reactions. This is book written for someone with scientific curiosity not necessary a Masters in Science!I definitely recommend "The Genie in the Bottle" - and I also give it as an endorsement to be used as bed time stories to your children, for it is these types of short essays on chemistry that may spark the love of the sciences in your child!

This is an excellent book for anyone interested in knowing a little more about chemicals and their place in the world. Through his stories, Schwarcz explains how chemicals are used in our everyday lives and how very often they are given a "negative impact" as not being natural. He shows how media and others have made chemicals appear to always be bad yet at the same time these agencies neglect the overwhelming good of chemistry! This book is not about bashing media but rather to inform the reader of the global story and the truth about many of the so-called "toxins" in our world. It is a truly interesting book that is light hearted in its style so that it will please both the scientist as well as the non-scientist!Finally, if you ever get to see "The Magic of Chemistry" or take "The World of Chemistry" course at McGill ... they are also highly recommended!

This is a fun little book that is exactly what the sub-heading on the book says it is: 67 commentaries on the fascinating chemistry of everyday life. I work as a chemist and I did enjoy reading this book.The book is broken up into 5 main sections. There is a section on Health Matters, Food Matters, Chemistry Everywhere, learning from the past, and Silly stories. The Health Matters and Food Matters are the most organized sections of the book. The mini-stories in the these two sections deal exclusively with health or food. Each section had a collection of short anecdotes. The anecdotes average at 3-4 pages per length with some being shorter and a few being significantly longer.This book is definitely geared more toward the average joe than to a chemist. That being said, there is enough chemistry addressed to interest your everyday chemist too. I was a bit disappointed that I had heard a lot of these stories before; they are things I've read about in headlines or just have general knowledge of. But for everything I had heard of there were two things I hadn't heard about.There is a lot of fun miscellaneous information in this book. Depending on how much of that you want to retain this book could be a quick or a slow read. I personally had trouble reading large portions of it at once because it was just so much information to assimilate. Especially in the later sections the anecdotes tend to jump around willy, nilly. You may be reading about how Hydrogen was discovered then, in the next anecdote, you are reading about Silly Putty. I found that I enjoyed the book (and remembered all the fun facts) the best when I read a few anecdotes a day.The writing style is done very well. There is a lot of tongue-in-cheek humor and there are a lot of cleverly worded passages. This is a chemistry book that will amuse and interest everyone. I personally applaud it for bringing chemistry to the masses. Chemistry is awesome and interesting; and it is wonderful that Schwarcz can make it interesting for everyone. I plan on checking out his additional collections of chemistry anecdotes in the future.

Wonderfully written with lots of information the average person needs to understand biology and the evolutionary process.

This book contains more than five dozen articles each describing some chemical substance, how it was discovered and how it became useful. All interesting and many clearly explained. Each piece of knowledge, however, is encased long texts straining to be funny. Any trick, preferably cute, is acceptable if it seems it will make the reader smile. Thus, chapters with titles such as "Oil You Need to Know" or "Willow Power", little anecdotes, references to famous names, closely or not associated with subject at hand. So much extraneous material weighs heavily on the final text. If the reader is patient and has little else to do, this may the book, if he is also interested in chemistry.

I've always been more interested in the arts, leaving science to more analytical folks. However, this gem of a collection of essays was so much fun to read while learning the secrets of how the world works, that I now find myself repeating the illuminating anecdotes. This is a book that should be introduced into elementary schools to give young children a sense of how exciting Chemistry is.

If you've been seeing my name pop up everywhere reviewing this author, you can tell how much I've enjoyed reading his work! He's got a terrific sense of humor and a genuine love for teaching the fascinating science of chemistry.

This book was great if you are interested in Chemistry, or science in general. It's composed of many short stories that the author experienced himself, and most are quite interesting. It's an easy read and the short chapters make it even easier for people to just pop open the book, read it for a few minutes and go on with whatever business they were working on. I would definitely recommend this book for science-lovers and people who want to know more information about the things they use in daily life.

It's an interesting book from a well informed author, and Schwarz explains the science really clearly, with a good sense of humour and without speaking down to the reader - it's a fun to read and I learnt a lot but I found it a little hard to focus all the way through the book.

WE NEED AN ENGLISH JO SHWARCZTOO MANY PEOPLE NOW KNOW NOTHING ABOUT VERY BASIC SCIENCE, HAVING BEEN DUMBED DOWN BY OUR CURENT EDUCATION SYSTEM, SATTELITE TV ETCSCWARCZ PROVIDES BITE-SIZED DIGESTIBLE CHUNKS OF INSIGHTFUL COMMENTARY INTO THE HOWS AND WHYS OF THE INTERACTIONS OF SCIENCE WITH OUR EVERYDAY LIVES LEAVENING MEATY FACT WITH PITHY, TOPICAL HUMOUR.SOMEWHAT REMINISCENT OF THE GREAT MARTIN GARDENER OF SCIENTIFIC AMERICAM FAME AND LACKING THE POMPOSITY OF STEVEN JAY GOULD (OF BLESSED MEMORY)THIS SHOULD BE A STANDARD SCHOOL SCIENCE TEXT BUT FOR ALL PUPILS OF ALL AGESREAD IT AND SMARTEN UP!!!!!!!!!