Introduction

Followup to part 1.

I encourage readers to read the papers fully and not just rely on the small summaries here. This tangentially relates to a reason I think that large language model (LLM) summarisation of papers just isn’t as valuable as people think it is. It is simply not the same as carefully reading and thinking deeply about work. Having an algorithm “decide” what is and isn’t important in a piece of work - a decision which has already been considered by the authors, the editor and the reviewers - skips an important part of the learning process.

Introduction

There are many resources or outlets that review new literature in chemistry, but few highlight classics. The exception to this is of course the “Classics in Total Synthesis” series of books. Here I will showcase some of my favourites from the literature, with a focus on mechanism, along with a brief explanation of my assessment of the importance of the work. If I can find the time, this will become a running series, until the relevant Zotero folder has been exhausted.