Kean's science writing is so accessible and engaging. This book will appeal to anyone with an interest in science or history. I have already gifted a copy to a chemistry teacher friend of mine!

This book has oodles of interesting science stories in it! It tells the history of significant events in biology, physics, and chemistry in an engaging and memorable fashion. I especially liked learning the origin of the term "limelight" and other things that I'd heard of but never knew the whole story. Even Kurt Vonnegut is mentioned in this book! Older students and adults will enjoy it, especially if they like history and/or science.

I received a free electronic copy of this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

This is a delightfully clever book with a truly thrilling title, I mean how can you not see it and immediately go 'huh, I wonder what this is about?' I am glad I picked it up because the author took the subject of air, something that a lot of people probably don't spend a ton of time thinking about, and made it very interesting.

Granted this is not the first book I have read about the air and atmosphere, I find the subject to be rather fascinating, and this book is certainly one of the best I have read on the subject. Keeping it pithy and approachable while still being in depth.

In his latest book, Kean tackles air composition, illustrating the simplicity and the complexity behind each breath we take. Using a mixture of science explanations and historic anecdotes, Kean tells a relatable tale of air’s composition, writing in a style that is easy to understand, even for a non-science reader (myself included). In essence, he makes the science behind air very accessible. Kean breaks down the particles in the air that makes this narrative nonfiction at times very humorous, and at times very dismal.

What I especially enjoyed about this book was the combination of history with science – Kean lays out the science behind each particle, tells the story of its discovery, followed by any events or catastrophes that occurred related to the particle. The gentle flow of the narrative between history and science kept my interest. Illustrations throughout of the scientists and discoverers, along with patents and inventions and other photographs, enhanced the narrative.

Great choice for anyone looking for a narrative nonfiction look at science, or to anyone curious about the air.

Review published simultaneously on Goodreads, LibraryThing and Litsy (links appear with this submission through NetGalley)

Sam Kean has become one of my favourite popular-science writers. I'd previously loved The Duelling Neurosurgeons, which fell within my wheelhouse, as I teach biological psychology. I wasn't sure that I would also fall in love with Caesar's Last Breath, as it's focus is on gases and the many interesting ways in which they impact the human existence. However, he has done it again!

Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us was fascinating. We start with the framing device of the breath that was contained in Caesar's last breath and then move on through a flurry of topics, including atomic bombs, flatulence, refrigeration, volcanic eruptions, weather, and how gases contributed to the current status of the earth. Kean writes at an easy-to-understand level when discussing complex topics and he makes them so interesting, as he infuses the stories with historical facts regarding the key players involved and the societies that they inhabited.

I personally enjoy how this author uses little stories to call out a particular point in the history of a topic. Air molecules are so small and there are so many of them that, at the beginning of each chapter when he gives a diagram of a gas and says how many septillion of them we inhale with each breath, these figures don't mean anything to me. I can't really conceive of the scale of that. But scientists experimenting on themselves and getting high and things exploding; these are things I can understand.

Physics and chemistry students are regularly forced to prove that molecules from Julius Caesar's last breath are definitely inside your lungs right now. Yes, you. Kean's rollicking exploration of Earth's atmosphere is stuffed full of such staggering oddities. Even an element as staid as nitrogen turns out to have a shocking back story, involving Nazis of all things. Although there is a decent amount of science, most of the focus is on the scientists: their triumphs, disasters, foibles, and occasional acts of gobsmacking stupidity. Kean's slightly snarky prose enlivens yet another seemingly prosaic topic.

Having read both the Disapearing Spoon and the Violinist's Thumb I knew this was going to be a winner. I loved the insights into the air around us and the fun stories he shares and the people he chooses to introduce. Loved this one! Had me laughing out loud during some parts! I gave it to my husband to read and he loved it as well. Who knew reading about Science could be so entertaining and fun!

I was so excited when I received an ARC of this book from Netgalley and Little, Brown & Company. I'm always looking for good books that I can share with my High School science students, but it's rare to find a chemistry related book that fits the bill -- Especially one as entertaining and engaging as this one. This examines how the gasses around us, often unnoticed, have shaped the world around us and been shaped by us. Kean uses historical events, discoveries, and anecdotes to illustrate how the gasses of Earth have changed throughout history: he infuses these stories with humor, and human interest -- focusing on the people making or affected by the discoveries. One of my favorite parts was about the discovery and naming of the Noble Gasses, I knew they were discovered well after many other gasses, but I didn't really know how.
I highly recommend this book to anyone who thinks it sounds remotely interesting, Kean is sure to keep you engaged! I can't wait to share it with my students this year!

Just image: over all the billions and billions of breaths you've taken, you may have inhaled molecules from Cleopatra's perfumes, or bits of cosmic dust dating back to the beginning of the universe. Caesar's Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us, by Sam Kean, is a fun and fascinating read. Air---an element that's vital to our very existence, yet invisible to us--influences every aspect of our lives, Kean asserts, from the revolutions we join, to our inventions, to the physical lands where we make our homes. Kean is an award-winning science writer, and this witty, enjoyable book is not to be missed.

Thank you very much for this book. Unfortunately, since it is not in kindle format, I am unable to read it.

So much fun! Caesar’s Last Breath is certainly the most enjoyable, informative and accessible popular science book I’ve read, and is gunning for the title of my favorite non-fiction book ever. Sam Kean takes the general topic of gases, shakes it around, and turns it upside down and inside out, examining it from multiple different angles ― some of them quite unexpected. The development of our earth’s atmosphere from the days our earth was formed, volcanoes, explosives from gunpowder to nuclear bombs, a farting genius, the vital role of ammonia in fertilizer (which development led to the use of chlorine in gas warfare), and many more gaseous topics are explored in this delightful book.

Kean has a vivid and engaging style of writing, with a wry sense of humor, which elevates Caesar’s Last Breath far above most pop science books. Gas molecules are described as feral, oxygen as a madman, our moon as an albatross (as compared to the gnats that circle most other mooned planets), and gravity as “that eternal meddler” that won’t abide two planets in the same neighborhood. I learned about the Big Thwack (when a hypothetical planet called Theia smashed into our earth, vaporizing itself and eventually reforming into our moon), the Oxygen Catastrophe of 2,000,000,000 BC, and the mushroom cloud-shaped cakes baked during the heady days of the late 1940s when nuclear blasts didn’t really seem all that dangerous.

Almost every topic Kean tackles is also given a human element. Some particularly memorable ones: Harry Randall Truman, the gutsy old coot who wouldn’t leave Mount Saint Helens, is juxtaposed with David Johnston, a geologist who volunteered for extra shifts in the closest observation towers on Saint Helens, believing that as a fit young marathon runner he had a better chance of escaping when the foreseeable eruption came than his older co-workers (he didn’t). The victims of Vesuvius who had the tops of their heads blown off like a mini-volcano eruption ― when your brain boils, the vapors need to escape somewhere! Louis Slotin, the nuclear scientist who had the eventually fatal habit of balancing a beryllium shell over a plutonium sphere and using an ordinary screwdriver to jiggle the sphere up and down, yo-yoing toward a nuclear chain reaction. Slotin rolled his eyes when Enrico Fermi warned him that he’d be dead within a year if he didn’t cut it out.

While I didn’t reach the stratospheric levels of Bill’s highlighting, I did highlight 56 different passages in Caesar’s Last Breath (I counted), far above my normal level. I also spent several minutes telling my teenage children about some of the particularly interesting facts and stories in this book, pinning them down at breakfast where they couldn’t escape me. Not that they wanted to! Caesar’s Last Breath would be an excellent gift for readers of all ages, even those who aren’t particularly science-minded. I’m already planning it as one of my 15 year old son’s Christmas gifts.

By the way, if Julius Caesar expelled one liter of air with his final breath, that breath contained approximately 25 sextillion molecules of air. Even though that’s a miniscule percentage of the air in our atmosphere, chances are that at least one molecule of Caesar’s last breath is in the very next breath you take.

Sam Kean is an entertaining pop science writer in general, and though this isn't as perfectly up my street as The Tale of the Duelling Neurosurgeons, it's still fascinating and very readable. It starts by reminding us that we're breathing the same air as everyone who has ever lived -- including Caesar, hence the title -- and that there's a high chance we're breathing in some of the same molecules that bounced around their lungs. Then it goes on to talking about the foundation of Earth's atmosphere, the power of gases and the road humans took to discovering that, and finishes with a look at how life affects its environment -- of course, the changes in the composition of our atmosphere that we cause, but also how we might spot other species on other planets doing the same.

As you can see, that's a lot of ground to cover, and Kean manages to string everything together into a pretty logical narrative. The longer chapters are leavened by interludes covering events that illustrate some part of what's under discussion, like using hot gases to cut into a bank vault...

Overall, entertaining and interesting, especially given that Earth sciences and the study of our atmosphere has never been a great interest of mine.

[Review link live from 3rd August.]

Great look at the atmosphere

This is the third book of Sam Kean’s that I’ve read; the other two were “The Violinist's Thumb” and “The Disappearing Spoon”. I loved the latter two, so I had high expectations for “Caesar’s Last Breath”. I was not disappointed. Once again Kean does some great storytelling, this time about the atmosphere. There is some science involved since it is necessary to understand the behavior of gases in order to understand the atmosphere. Kean explains the science very simply, clearly, and painlessly. He then delves into a discussion of the atmosphere. Although I was already familiar with some of the material that Kean discusses, Kean’s magnificent storytelling made it seem all new. Even the footnotes are great. I strongly recommend this book for anyone who likes science.

Informative, witty, vivid, often compelling, sometimes juvenile, knowledgeable, clear, and written throughout with verve and panache via what feels like a wholly singular voice, Sam Kean’s Caesar’s Last Breath: Decoding the Secrets of the Air Around Us is what every non-fiction book should aspire to. It’s been a while since I’ve so enjoyed a work of non-fiction so thoroughly and consistently.

Kean divides his exploration of air into three large sections, the first dealing with the origin of our current atmosphere, one of many our planet (if not humanity) has seen. The second explains how various natural philosophers/scientists discovered the gases that make up the air surrounding us, and also how those gases were harnessed to do various types of work, such as ballooning or as anesthesia. The last section discusses how humans have actually changed the air around us (via nuclear fallout for instance) and then skips outside our personal realm to look at atmospheres elsewhere in the solar system and even beyond, discussing for instance how we might ascertain the atmospheric makeup of an exoplanet and what that information may reveal about the possibility of life there. As well, Kean offers up several “interludes,” which wander down a variety of paths—Roswell, spontaneous combustion, several personal human-interest stories.

One of my measurements of how successful a non-fiction work was for me is how much of it I highlighted, either to retain/take note of information I didn’t know already or because of particularly well-written lines/sections. Believe me, there’s an insane amount of yellow in my iBooks copy. We’re talking Charlotte Perkins Gilman level, as demonstrated by how I have to flick my finger down the side to set it scrolling at super-speed, wait for it to slow, then repeat several times before I get to the end. And a look at where those highlights are also shows just how damn good Kean is: pg. 48, pg. 49. Pg. 50, pg. 50, pg. 51, pg. 51, pg. 51, pg. 51 (clearly a very good page), pg. 52, pg. 52. I have to scroll some time before I get to even a page I didn’t highlight anything on (poor page 75—overshadowed by pages 74 and 76). The next such gap doesn’t appear until page 174 apparently didn’t match up to the page just before and just after. Clearly Kean was really off his game at this point, as I somehow didn’t highlight anything on pages 178-182. Slacker!

Everything here is laid out incredibly clearly and concisely. But it’s not merely an efficient conciseness, one that neglects style in favor of simply conveying information. It’s all great fun even as one soaks up knowledge. And there doesn’t seem to be any topic Kean can’t handle with ease and aplomb: the periodic table, the shift to gas lighting, A-bomb testing, refrigeration, fertilizer, guano, weather forecasting and control, climate change, steel making, chemical warfare, primordial Earth, steam engines, astrobiology, and farting.

Yes, farting. Since as Kean tells us, “Now don’t act like you didn’t see this coming. This is a book about gases in all their variety, and there’s no gas we think about more often than the gas we pass.” And thus he leads into the incredible story of Joseph Pujol, otherwise known as Le Petomane (the Fartomaniac). And when I say “otherwise known,” I mean “known,” for as Kean informs us, Pujol was “the highest-paid performer in France, earning . . . more than double what the legendary actress Sarah Bernhardt did.” And yes, his performance was made up of exactly what you might think with that stage name. I’ll leave the details to Kean’s book.

Silly as it is, Pujol’s story is an example of one of the many strengths of Kean’s book, which is that as informative as it is, as filled with science and data and experiment summaries as it is, he never loses sight of the human in all this. Whether it’s bringing us in for an up-close look at a famous scientist like Lavoisier or a stubborn old man who refused to evacuate before the eruption of Mount Saint Helens (“the greatest geology lesson in American history), we never stray too far from the human experience. Some of it humorous, some inspiring, some tragic. This holds true even in the “notes and miscellanea” section at the end, which is as interesting and vivid as the main book and absolutely should not be skipped.

Caesar’s Last Breath is an absolute joy, a jewel of non-fiction, a book that manages to deftly employ an engagingly breezy tone even as it looks seriously and deeply at science and nature. Beyond my obvious heartfelt recommendation that you pick up a copy, I’d also strongly suggest considering it as a gift for anyone with a sense of curiosity about the world around them. That includes young readers. It’s not a young adult book, and sure, they might be lost here and there, but Kean’s writing is so clear and accessible that I wouldn’t hesitate at all to hand this book to a kid over the age of ten or so. I’m handing to my own fifteen-year-old myself. And buying his other books.