Michael Bywater

The stuff of life

It’s ubiquitous, polymorphous, and without it there would be no energy. Dag Olav Hessen unearths its mystery

issue 26 May 2018

‘I didn’t realise we were carbon,’ said a friend to whom I mentioned this book. She was the first of several. It’s odd to think of clever and educated people not knowing that we are made of such stuff. But The Many Lives of Carbon is an odd book to come to grips with.

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