Paperbacks: Uncle Tungsten <br></br>The Reign of Henry VIII <br></br>A Life of Walter Scott <br></br>Somewhere For Me <br></br>The Book of Prefaces

Uncle Tungsten by Oliver Sacks (Picador, £6.99, 337pp)

An autobiography devoted to the author's early obsession with inorganic chemistry may not sound the most promising of volumes, yet this book is the finest so far from the celebrated neurologist. Born into an intensely curious scientific family – his father showed him that strychnine diluted a millionfold was still detectable on the tongue, while his uncle extolled the virtues of heavy metal – Sacks quickly developed a keen interest in elements. As a child, he would goggle at the way that aluminium would instantly oxidise, "like some terrible disease", when his uncle smeared a lump with mercury.

He was soon performing his own experiments in a fume cupboard, not always with the advancement of science in mind. His teacher broke teeth on biscuits that Sacks cooked (the ingredients included concrete), while his mother threw out gefilte fish that he sprinkled with pongy stuff called trimethylamine. There was a serious side to his obsession, however. When his brother Michael suffered a mental breakdown, Sacks felt himself going the same way, but was saved by "the neutrality and beauty of nature", exemplified by the "dizzying loops of the Periodic Table". In this unclassifiable book, Sacks devotes several chapters to a lively history of chemistry. Even if, like this reviewer, you fell by the wayside when the dread topic of valencies came up in lessons (Sacks's aunt insisted, "God thinks in numbers"), his enthralling account will bring back the time when nothing was more exciting than the dazzle of burning magnesium or the fizz of sodium in water.

The Reign of Henry VIII: personalities and politics by David Starkey (Vintage, £7.99, 160pp)

The author's celebrated outbursts on The Moral Maze often took the form of an acid comment on his target's appearance. He utilises the technique to great effect in this vivid account of political manoevring within Henry's court. Though prone to vacillation, Henry was "a big man, mentally as well as physically", who surrounded himself with world-class self-seekers. Starkey's group portrait brilliantly conveys the energy and ruthlessness of the era.

A Life of Walter Scott by A N Wilson (Pimlico, £12.50, 197pp)

A wholly persuasive re-evaluation of a writer whose books, once adored by Byron and Dickens, are now rarely opened. The Scott described by Wilson is a surprisingly modern figure. He dressed in suits of lawyer's black rather than tartan and was a major shareholder in the Edinburgh Oil Gas Co. His financial downfall also has a familiar ring, caused not by overspending on his palatial home, Abbotsford, but disastrous over-investment in his publisher Constable and his printer Ballantynes. Wilson's enthusiastic synopses of Scott's historical epics makes you itch to explore his long-forgotten oeuvre.

Somewhere For Me: A biography of Richard Rodgers by Meryle Secrest (Bloomsbury, £8.99, 453pp)

Meryle Secrest compares her technique to "walking over a beach covered with millions of pebbles, looking for [a] few remarkable stones". It is hard to detect much sign of this selectivity. Despite her thoroughness, Secrest's subject remains oddly elusive. Rodgers was compliant and genial during his 25 years composing with the alcoholic wordsmith Lorenz Hart, but turned into a prickly perfectionist after switching partners to Oscar Hammerstein. At its best, this book plunges you into New York's Great White Way and fills your head with Rodgers' incomparable tunes.

The Book of Prefaces by Alasdair Gray (Bloomsbury, £16.99, 640pp)

The multitalented Scot has produced a big book devoted to the little bits of literature ignored by readers. Self-illustrated and authoritatively glossed, Gray's selection performs a winning PR job for the preface. How could anyone resist Mark Twain's intro to Huck Finn ("Persons trying to find a plot in it will be shot") or Shaw's blithe preamble to The Irrational Knot, where he refers to his protagonist as Whatshisname ("I have sent my only copy to the printers, and cannot remember my hero's name")? These throat-clearings constitute a splendid anthology of pre-20th century EngLit.