For a fun tour of nasty chemicals, I can recommend "Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants" by John D. Clark. You will learn about all the n

For a fun tour of nasty chemicals, I can recommend "Ignition! An Informal History of Liquid Rocket Propellants" by John D. Clark. You will learn about all the nice propellants that were tried back in the 50s and 60s, like FCl_3 and liquid lithium... Edit: Nm, saw this was already mentioned.