Levi, an Italian-Jewish chemist who survived Auschwitz and died in 1987 (the question of suicide vs. accident remains debated today!), uses 21 elements from argon through zinc, to tell his autobiographical story of a childhood in Turin, his early student years, his associates who died in the Resistance, but only indirectly touches upon his experiences in the concentration camp.  An epically human story set cleverly in the trope of the chemistry of life.