Radar, Hula Hoops, and Playful Pigs: 67 Digestible Commentaries on the Fascinating Chemistry of Everyday Life [Book Review]

Joe Schwarcz, the 1999 winner of the American Chemical Society's James T. Grady–James H. Stack Award for Interpreting Chemistry for the Public, regularly contributes to newspapers and other popular media, and a number of his pieces are collected here. Each of the 67 "digestible" essays in this book serves as a little dose of antidote against the evil words—unnatural, toxic, polluting—commonly associated with chemistry, as well as a reminder that all of life is, basically, chemistry. The intriguing and attractively written articles include explanations of how shampoos work, why chicken soup is good for colds, what can be done with polyethylene (the source of the book's title), a possible cause for the Salem witch episode, and many others. More than half the pieces have to do with either food or health (or both); the rest cover a wide range of topics, all maintaining close connections to the familiar.