Periodic Table (Abacus Books) - Softcover

Levi, Primo:

4.15

16,936 ratings by Goodreads

9780349121987: Periodic Table (Abacus Books)

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0349121982 ISBN 13: 9780349121987

Publisher: London: Abacus 1986., 1994

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'A book it is necessary to read' - Saul Bellow. In these haunting reflections, Primo Levi, a chemist by training, takes the elements of the periodic table as his starting point and inspiration. Written with understated eleoquence and shot through with deep humanity, Levi ranges from young love to political savagery in this, one of his most famous works.

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Review:

Writer Primo Levi (1919-1987), an Italian Jew, did not come to the wide attention of the English-reading audience until the last years of his life. A survivor of the Holocaust and imprisonment in Auschwitz, Levi is considered to be one of the century's most compelling voices, and The Periodic Table is his most famous book. Springboarding from his training as a chemist, Levi uses the elements as metaphors to create a cycle of linked, somewhat autobiographical tales, including stories of the Piedmontese Jewish community he came from, and of his response to the Holocaust.

From the Inside Flap:

An extraordinary work in which each of the 21 chapters takes its title and starting point from one of the elements in the periodic table. Mingling fact and fiction, history and anecdote, Levi uses his training as a chemist and his experiences as a prisoner in Auschwitz to illuminate the human condition.

"From the Hardcover edition.

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