The book by the famous popularizer of science Pyotr Obraztsov and his classmate at the Faculty of Chemistry of Moscow State University, the famous poet Bakhyt Kenzheev, talks about dozens of the most common and most unusual substances surrounding humans - from gold to food, from water to poisons, from enzymes and medicines to shale gas. In the end, a person himself is a mixture of chemical substances, and if only for this reason, knowledge of their properties allows you to avoid many everyday troubles, which is very wittily described in the book. The authors debunk numerous myths and expose prejudices associated with various substances, but at the same time they report a lot of surprising things about the characteristics of these substances, and in addition, they find many unexpected intersections of chemistry and poetry. Even those for whom chemistry lessons are an unspeakable bore, after reading this entertaining book, will regret that it ended so quickly.