Kevin Kelly, founder of Wired, enjoys writing about cool tools, which he defines as "any book, gadget, software, video, map, hardware, material, or website that is tried and true." And this week Kelly included Robert Bruce Thompson's Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments in his roster of "cool tools."

Kelly offered this praise: "Illustrated Guide to Home Chemistry Experiments is a fantastic teacher for chemical literacy. It will show you or your kids how to work with chemicals, and why they are fun. Some of the experiments are visually entertaining. Others are scientifically important. It's got wise advice about the few bits of equipment you'll need for your lab. The Illustrated Guide very handily provides substitutions for ingredients whenever possible, so you can work around harder to acquire or expensive chemicals and gear. And it very conscientiously gives proper disposal instructions for substances at the end (the first I've ever seen in a chem book). The author is thrifty, using no more stuff then necessary, and always suggesting ways to purchase the minimum equipment."

At Maker Faire, recently, Thompson mourned the demise of chemistry sets. (1964 was a very good year). You'll also get a peek at his own home lab.