The Periodic Table

By: Primo Levi

Narrated by: Neville Jason

The Periodic Table by Primo Levi is an impassioned response to the Holocaust: Consisting of 21 short stories, each possessing the name of a chemical element, the collection tells of the author's experiences as a Jewish-Italian chemist before, during, and after Auschwitz in luminous, clear, and unfailingly beautiful prose. It has been named the best science book ever by the Royal Institution of Great Britain and is considered to be Levi's crowning achievement.

Download the accompanying reference guide.©1898 1975, 1982, 1994 & 2014 Giulio Einaudi editore s.p.a., Torino; Translation © Schocken Books, an imprint of The Knopf Doubleday Group, a division of Penguin Random House LLC (P)2015 Naxos AudioBooks

inspiring and fascinating

the most amazing science book ever written- by one of the most amazing individuals to ever live

Profoundly moving

Listening to this series of stories which I had read many years before I was struck by the extraordinary humanity and compassion of this unique man. How it v was possible to have survived Auschwitz and still maintain a balanced and objective view of life is beyond me. In his place I would have spent my remaining years focused on retribution and vengeance. A rare human being. The narration by Neville Jason is in sync with the unfolding accounts, convincing and in some cases deeply moving.

David Evan Glasser

A beautiful, wonderfully crafted and thoughtful gem

I have been mean to read this for years. I wish I had do so sooner. Such a beautiful and smart book.

Facile narrative style

Learned a little about chemistry, a lot about storytelling. I’d recommend to anyone who can handle WE2.

If You Loved 'All The Light We Cannot See'

The prose of Levi is the best example of 'Writer's Slight of Hand'. With elegant metaphors he spins the web of the 'Ponderous root of man' - Chemistry. But the allusions to the elements of the PERIODIC TABLE are the frame in which fits the horrors of the Holocaust. The superficial layer is beguiling - Noble Elements, Gold, Sulphur, Zinc, Vanadium. From these there emerges a riff of personal history, personal tragedy and political horror. Thus Noble gases are both 'Noble and Inert' - much like the Turinese family from which Levi springs. Vanadium is the springboard for the reconstruction of a chemist's role in making artificial rubber miles from the crematoria; making rubber and yet agnostic to the nearby horror. For the listener there are some overstatements of science BUT they are balanced by structures of brilliant writing. I could not imagine reading this book as, the narrator, Neville Jason speaks both for the writer, articulates for the listener and provides articulation which informs the prose. This is seminal writing and a high-wire act of story telling and the story teller.