The Perks and Perils of Trespassing – The Making of The Last Alchemist In Paris

Magazine article, 2016

Some eight years ago I sat down to draw out a blueprint for a book that should tell stories about how the chemistry of individual elements of the periodic table had changed, for better or for worse, the courses of ordinary peoples’ lives. Several things motivated me; I was sitting on a number of stories where literature and history intersected with chemistry that I would love to tell to a bigger audience, but I also found there was a lack of popular science books in chemistry that actually explained something, as opposed to just telling how things are. So, in short, it was a mixture of pleasure motivation and a pedagogical utility incentive springing from many years of undergraduate teaching that made me embark on this journey.