Short items

The periodic table: Elements with style 

Adrian Dingle (text) and Simon Basher (graphic design) 

London, UK: Kingfisher Publications 2007 | 128pp | ?6.99(SB) ISBN 9780753415115 

This delightful little book gives a simple, humorous introduction to the periodic table; an ideal present for an enquiring child aged 7-11. Through engaging graphics and informative, well-written text, each element is given its own personality, with insights into element properties, reactions and applications. An example is: ’I am a Scot. You may see me as a shy, run-of-the-mill silver-coloured metal, but I’ll catch your eye with the stunning crimson colours that I give to fireworks’ - who am I? 

Foldamers 

Stefan Hecht and Ivan Huc (eds) 

Weinheim, Germany: Wiley-VCH 2007 | 434pp | ?110.00 (HB) ISBN 9783527315635 

Foldamers are synthetic oligomers with conformational preferences. This book covers their structure, design, and applications in bio-, material-, and nanoscience. 

Computational organic chemistry 

Steven M Bachrach 

Hoboken, New Jersey, US: Wiley-Interscience 2007 | 478pp | ?61.50 (HB) ISBN 9780471713425 

Bachrach provides a practical overview of the ways in which computational modeling methods and applications can be used in organic chemistry to predict the structure and reactivity of organic molecules. 

Polymer dynamics and relaxation 

Richard H Boyd and Grant D Smith 

Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press 2007 | 255pp | ?75.00 (HB) ISBN 9780521814195 

An outline of the ways in which polymer molecules can locally change the details of the shape and conformation of their molecular chain and accumulate these changes so that global changes in molecular shape can result.