In the long list of potential books that I didn't quite get to the printers, there's one that I wanted to call Nature's chemistry - essentially a collection of snappy stories from the chemistry/biology interface. I think this idea came up just at the wrong time, namely at the point when my German publishers, Wiley-VCH gave up on such collections of stories. Previously they had been quite happy to publish them in their series Erlebnis Wissenschaft, probably based on the success of John Emsley's work in German translation, not so much on the success of my books.
Anyhow, Nature's chemistry never happened, and it never occurred to me to add the word amazing to the title. Now Michael Freemantle did just that , and with that magic ingredient he managed to get it published with the Royal Society of Chemistry, so well done to him. I was grateful to learn from his book about the chemistry of snowdrops (on the cover) and beaver excrements, but predictably more critical when reading about fields I have also covered. Overall, I guess it will face the same amount of disinterest from the general public as my books, so I suspect I should be supportive in solidarity.
My review of the book is now out in the January issue of Chemistry & Industry:
Made better by nature
Chemistry & Industry Volume 90, Issue 1, January 2026, Page 35
access via:
Wiley Online Library (paywalled PDF of the whole review section)
SCI (premium content, ie members only)
As always, I can send a PDF on request.
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