Fwiw, I studied humanities, do a lot of pop science reading in my spare time, and I'm able to appreciate it. There are more detailed and technical sections I skim or skip, but the overviews are fantastic. Incredible description of, for example, the sheer wonder we should all experience at the fact that all life starts as a single cell.

MBC is readable by someone with an undergraduate background in science. You'd probably want basic knowledge of biology, general chemistry and organic chemistry.

It's essentially an upper-level undergraduate textbook.

I did get a book or two out of the library, plus I had Chem 101 in college, but really, not very much.

Probably just a college level gen chem class. Pretty accessible, albeit technical, textbook from what I remember of reading it for a course a few years ago.

The chemistry requirements are minimal. You should understand the difference between ionic and covalent bonds, how van der Waals forces work, hydrophobicity, solubility, and the effects of catalysts on reaction transition states. It will also be important to understand what reaction kinetics are and what pH means. An understanding of buffers might be useful.

I would argue that, to understand the book, you specifically don't need to know electrochemistry, organic chemistry, analytical chemistry, organometallics, spectroscopy, or even physical chemistry.