Love chemically
Mike Shipton reviews this unusual text
Lust and love: is it more than chemistry?
Gabriele Froböse and Rolf Froböse
Cambridge: RSC 2006 | Pp212 | £24.95 | ISBN 0 854 04867 7
Older readers may remember Helga and Michael, a dramatised documentary film on sex education released in 1968. While the film gave an insight into the physics and biology concerned, this new book, published by the Royal Society of Chemistry (RSC), uses a similar approach to deliver a chemical perspective on love, desire and passion. We are invited to engage with the topic through following the events of a day in the lives of Bianca and Michael, a fictional couple.
This is an unusual work. The reader could find the information this book contains elsewhere, but its strength is in the way it brings together an eclectic mix of material in a concise, coherent manner. We are treated to forays into the fields of biochemistry, neurology, psychiatry and psychology to name just a few. In addition, our general knowledge is extended through inclusion of topics, ranging from the development of perfumes through the history of lipsticks to the health benefits of masturbation.
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