If you ever wanted to do alchemy in your own kitchen this is the book for you. This book covers a variety of alchemical subjects. Distillation of chemical elements is the focus. The book has extensive (quite a feat for a 58 page book) appendixes with "recipes" for elixirs, balms, perfumes. If you want to distill water until it is so pure it will eat through metal or you want to make your own charcoal, I recommend this book to you.
This book is one of the titles in the Wooden Books series. They're small books packed with lots of information. I bought a few of these books last year and saved this one for last because I thought it would be my favorite given the subject. I was so disappointed. It reminded me of Organic Chemistry class -- which I hated.
I will recommend another book in the series: Symmetry: The Ordering Principle by David Wade. Very interesting -- I'll never look at pineapples the same way again. ( )