Salt: Grain of Life

By Pierre Laszlo

From proverbs to technical arguments, from anecdotes to examples of folklore, chemist and philosopher Pierre Laszlo takes us through the kingdom of "white gold." With "enthusiasm and freshness" ( Le Monde) he mixes literary analysis, history, anthropology, biology, physics, economics, art history, political science, chemistry, ethnology, and linguistics to create a full body of knowledge about the everyday substance that rocked the world and brings zest to the ordinary.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Columbia University Press
• Release date: Sep 5, 2001
• ISBN: 9780231511315

Reviews for Salt

[petra5xs · Rating: 1 out of 5 stars]

The review on the front cover reads: "I have been darting, delightedly, from one section to another -from Salting Herring to extreme halophiles, to Spectroscopy. It is a marvellous mosaic leavened with great charm and lightness." (Oliver Sacks).

That is a perfect summing up of a book that doesn't hold your attention for more than a minute, where you have to dart around to see if there is anything your mind can settle on. Too much information is presented as a 'mosaic' of off-topic light humour, speculation and quirky little asides.

The Positive: there is charm in the writing, which is about the nicest thing I can say of this over-blown and often-awkward translation.

The Negative: to give an example of how bad this book is, the second introduction (!) is all about whether the book should be a book, essays or called a treatise. A second introduction indeed!

I gave up after making like a hummingbird and flitting around three chapters-worth of this and that, never finding the sweetness, nor even any tiny grain of the enticingly savoury. Mind, I still have the book. I love the cover.