The Periodic Table / Primo Levi, trans. by Ann Goldstein, 198 pp.

An autobiography, organized according to elements of the periodic table.  It sounds like a gimmick, except, of course, that Levi was a chemist and weaves episodes of his life into his experiences in the lab in a way that feels completely new.  So the chapter called 'Iron' tells of his friendship with Sandro, a fellow chemistry student in the days just before the war began.  Like Sandro, iron is an "easy and guileless element...incapable of hiding;" Sandro, too, is "honest and open" and, the reader learns, exceptionally tough, seemed "...made of iron, and he was bound to iron by an ancient kinship...," having descended from coppersmiths and blacksmiths.  Other chapters are less lyrical if no less powerful; 'Cerium' is a chapter from Auschwitz in which Levi steals cylinders of ferrocerium from the lab he is forced to work in. He and his friend Alberto survive their latter days in the camp by whittling the cylinders down to flint size in order to trade them for bread.  No less poignant and beautiful than If This Is a Man or Truce, one nevertheless sees in this more mature writing an author who feels free to write exactly what he pleases and in the manner he wishes, and in doing so creates something completely original.