“Natural history” may have been my first words. As a college biology major, I came to deeply appreciate the diversity and adaptations of animal life. In medical school, I learned how human tissues, especially bone, work and fail. Orthopedic surgery residency allowed me to drill down, literally and figuratively, on living bone. I have traveled extensively on all continents and, in so doing, continue to expand my passion for learning about bone’s historical and cultural aspects along with its marvelous biological properties. In 2017, I began blogging (aboutbone.com), and in 2020, I published Bones, Inside and Out. Now I’m also biting into teeth. I love life’s hard stuff.
Bryson comes through once again with a comprehensive, fact-filled journey, this time through the human body.
I love the witty anecdotes he peppers throughout. I find myself laughing out loud with his ironic sense of humor as he describes the workings of bones and muscles (along with the lesser tissues) in ways that general readers can understand and appreciate.
NATIONAL BESTSELLERNEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLERINTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS' CHOICE NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF 2019 BY Maclean's - The Washington Post - USA Today - IndigoBill Bryson, bestselling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As compulsively readable as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for everybody.Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body--how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal…
I love the way the author casts a wide net over the topic and covers facets as diverse as the history of dentistry, the diminished job prospects for those with poor dentition, and the story of the pioneering dentist who made Shirley Temple’s teeth glisten on the silver screen.
Smiling will never be the same, at least not for me.
'Show me your teeth', the great naturalist George Cuvier is credited with saying, 'and I will tell you who you are'. In this shattering new work, veteran health journalist Mary Otto looks inside America's mouth, revealing unsettling truths about our unequal society. Teeth takes readers on a disturbing journey into the role teeth play in our health and our social mobility. Muckraking and paradigm-shifting, Teeth exposes for the first time the extent and meaning of our oral health crisis.
Tap Dancing on Everest, part coming-of-age memoir, part true-survival adventure story, is about a young medical student, the daughter of a Holocaust survivor raised in N.Y.C., who battles self-doubt to serve as the doctor—and only woman—on a remote Everest climb in Tibet.
I like how Schutt takes a topic as “in your face” as teeth and expands it to entertain and educate across the subject’s broadest reaches, beginning 500,000 years ago and spanning all vertebrate zoology.
Now, when I see a smile or a snarl, I think about not only what they say about the owner’s age, state of health, state of mind, and social status but also how some animals use teeth for aggression or as an extra hand to manipulate their environment.
I also appreciate how teeth, an important and durable part of the fossil record, allow us to glimpse far into pre-history.
From three-inch fang blennies to thirty-foot prehistoric crocodiles, from gaboon vipers to Neanderthals, Bite is a fascinating journey through the natural, scientific, and cultural history of something right in front of—or in—our faces: teeth.
In Bite, zoologist Bill Schutt makes a surprising case: it is teeth that are responsible for the long-term success of vertebrates. The appearance of teeth, roughly half a billion years ago, was an adaptation that allowed animals with backbones, such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, dinosaurs and mammals—including us—to chow down in pretty much every conceivable environment.
I was fascinated by the stunningly beautiful color photographs of 300 skulls, and I learned a lot from the accompanying brief descriptions of their animal owners’ skeletal anatomy, habitat, and behavior. From newts to cassowaries, seahorses to wombats, and hedgehogs to dolphins, the breadth of adaptations across the zoological realm is evident and worthy of appreciation.
I particularly liked the middle section where the author describes the skull’s iconography across cultures and through history along with its role in art. The book is on my coffee table and is always a conversation starter.
Skulls is a beautiful spellbinding exploration of more than 300 different animal skulls--amphibians, birds, fish, mammals, and reptiles-written by New York Times bestselling author, Simon Winchester and produced in collaboration with Theodore Gray and Touch Press, the geniuses behind The Elements and Solar System.In Skulls, best-selling author Simon Winchester (author of The Professor and the Madman; Atlantic: A Biography of the Ocean; Krakatoa: The Day the World Exploded; and others)tells the rich and fascinating story of skulls, both human and animal, from every perspective imaginable: historical, biographical, cultural, and iconographic. Presenting details about the parts of the skull (including the…
Nick and Lesley Albert yearn to leave the noise, stress and pollution of modern Britain and move to the countryside, where the living is good, the air sweet, with space for their dogs to run free.
Suddenly out of work and soon to be homeless, they set off in search…
Skeleton Keys is de facto evidence that bone is a worthy and heretofore underreported element of natural and cultural history.
I like the author's convincing explanation of how the human body carries around much of the natural world’s history. He helps the reader unlock and interpret the story with respect and awe for his subject.
“A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone.” —Wall Street Journal
Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen.
Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how you lived. Arguably, no other part of the human anatomy has such rich scientific and cultural significance, both brimming with life and a…
A lively, illustrated exploration of bone’s 500-million-year history, this book is a touchstone for understanding vertebrate life and human culture. Bone is versatile and unique: it is the only tissue that repairs itself without scarring. Dr. Meals, an orthopedist, explores and extols this amazing material. Inside the body, bone proves itself to be the world’s best building material. Meals examines its biological makeup and explains how it grows and heals. He debunks familiar myths and illustrates common bone diseases, including osteoporosis.
After it has supported vertebrate life, bone reveals itself in surprising ways―sometimes millions of years later. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals investigates the roles bone has played in human culture throughout history and uncovers its enduring presence as fossils, tools, and even musical instruments.
This is the story of New York City, told through the prism of one block. It’s a story of forest and cement, bird cries and taxi horns, theaters and brothels, hotels and factories, gambling dens and gourmet foods.
It’s also the story of high life and low life, immigrants and…
Hope, Laughter, Survival on the Refugee Trail
by
Eileen Kay,
Dramatic true story with a wacky sense of humor.
Retired English teacher in Budapest meets foreign medical students fleeing the war in Ukraine, producing a sweet and unlikely friendship, spicy soup, and wicked joking. A sense of humor, however dark, can keep us from despair.
