Ignition

John D. Clark's 1972 informal history of liquid rocket propellant development — combining technical chemistry with first-person accounts of explosions, near-misses, and the darkly comic experience of working with substances designed to be maximally energetic and minimally stable.

Demonstrated that technical writing about an arcane subject (rocket propellant chemistry) can be simultaneously rigorous and entertaining — making it one of the most cited 'favorite books' of engineers and entrepreneurs including Elon Musk — and documenting an era of improvised, dangerous, brilliant chemistry work.