The Periodic Table is a collection of short stories by Primo Levi, generally arranged in chronological order (with a few diversions) so that they trace the arc of his career as a chemist, from his childhood in northern Italy, his time in Auschwitz concentration camp at the tail end of World War II, and his return to Turin.
The book's ingenious structure is that each story corresponds (and is titled) with an element of the periodic table: for example, "Zinc" tells a tale of university lab work, while "Lead" and "Mercury" tell something akin to folk tales in distant lands.
Levi wrote other books concerning his experiences in Auschwitz, so this book doesn't spend a lot of time on those details, but Auschwitz, as well as Fascism in his native Italy, are supporting characters throughout the book. In fact, a "colleague" at a factory that was using Levi as slave labor while he was in Auschwitz re-enters his life years later in "Vanadium," and Levi forces the man to reckon with his actions during that earlier time.
I don't feel like I'm in an adequate state of mind to effectively communicate why I related to this book so much, but I just feel like Levi spent many years trying as a chemist to be a competent professional, and this book conveys that spirit in a way that I haven't experienced before. That in attempting to do a thing well that thing, though not transcendent in any way in and of itself, can become a way to convey transcendence upon our actions. Levi seeks answers in a very temporal, immediate vein in his work, and in that way his words lift up his work, perhaps. He is a modest man, but he has shown me so much in how he has gone about his daily life.
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