Locus Amoenus: All By My Shelf

I really tried, you guys.

I love popular science books, because although it wasn't my best subject at school, I found a lot of the history behind the discipline really interesting. So I read as many of these books as I can.

However, this one alternately confused me and bored me to tears. I don't see how it's structured (and come on, it talks about how elements are organized), and the author manages to be both very condescending and assume we have knowledge of what to me were fairly obscure details.

Seriously, the Discworld universe (which I'm currently happily immersed in) seems a hundred times more logical and better organized than the one this author describes.

I normally read books to the end, but with this one I'm going with the "life is too short etc." excuse, and noping out at just 20% (around the fourth chapter).