Category Archives: nonfiction

BOOK REVIEW: An Introduction to Zen Training by Omori Sogen

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An Introduction to Zen TrainingAn Introduction to Zen Training by Omori Sogen
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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This is a guidebook that explains how to sit for meditation—particularly in the Rinzai style. It describes all the fundamentals one needs to begin Zen sitting including: posture, breathing, where to look, what to do with one’s hands, and even how to get up after a long session. It also provides background information about what to look for in a teacher, what differentiates Rinzai from Soto Zen, and what the objective of practice is (and why it is sought after.) This makes it sound like a dry, technical manual, and to some degree it’s unavoidably so. However, the author does include stories here and there to make the book more engaging and palatable. Overall, though, it’s written as a manual for students.

The book is arranged into 7 chapters, but it’s only the first five of these that are the author’s introduction to Zen meditation. These five chapters are logically arranged to cover the ground from why one should practice to what effects it will have with consideration of the aims, technique, and pitfalls covered in between. The last two chapters are commentaries on (including text from) a couple of the key documents of Zen Buddhism: “A Song of Zen” (Zazen Wazen) and “The Ten Oxherding Pictures.”

There are black and white graphics. First, there are line drawings used to convey information about posture and the physical body in meditation. Second, there are a few photographs of the author, including his dōjō and in the practice of swordsmanship. The author was a skilled swordsman; hence my tagging of this book in “martial arts,” as there may be some interest among martial artists in the author’s take as one who straddled the two worlds of Zen and budō. Finally, there are also copies of the ten ox herding pictures that go with the verse.

I think this book is well-organized and provides a beginner an excellent introduction to the practice of Zen. I didn’t really note any major deficiencies, and will thus recommend it as a good resource for anyone considering taking up a Zen practice or wanting to learn more about doing so. I should point out that the book does also get into the philosophical aspects of Zen, but if one isn’t looking for information about how to practice then there may be books more oriented toward one’s needs. Despite the fact that the book is a translation, it’s clear and readable. As I said, it includes stories—including those about Japanese warriors as well as Zen masters—and that helps to break up the dryness of what is at its core an instructional manual.

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BOOK REVIEW: Chemistry: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Atkins

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Chemistry: A Very Short IntroductionChemistry: A Very Short Introduction by Peter Atkins
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Lately, I’ve been reading several of these “A Very Short Introduction” [AVSI] books put out by Oxford University Press. They are a good way to take in the basics of a subject in a concise and layman-friendly manner—either as a refresher or introduction. And they are inexpensive both on Kindle and at my local book seller, Blossom Book House in Bangalore. There are 400 to 500 titles in the series (and growing) and they deal with topics as broad as… well, Chemistry, to as narrow as the Dead Sea Scrolls. They’re available for subjects in the sciences, art, social sciences, the humanities, etc. This book, like most in the series, is about 100 pages long, and includes a glossary and suggestions for further reading.

As is common across the series, the writing is approachable to a non-specialist, but don’t expect Mary Roach style popular science writing. The author doesn’t use interesting stories or colorful language to make his point. The trade-off for getting a concise explanation is that you may find the book dry. I won’t say that these books—and this one in particular—aren’t for pleasure readers, but they’re for readers who take pleasure in learning–as well as those who need to get a grasp on a subject quickly (e.g. your fiance’s mother is a Professor of Microbiology and her father is one of the foremost experts on the Norman Conquest—and you don’t want to seem like an idiot—OUP has you covered.)

As the common subtitle suggests, you will only get the bare essentials. That’s truer for books with a broad scope than those of narrow scope. That is, if you read the AVSI book on “Philosophy” you are going to get less of the full story of the title subject than you will of the one entitled “Heidegger.” Of course, Chemistry is broad.

There are seven chapters in this book. The first offers background information on the history of chemistry, its scope and where it fits with respect to related sciences, and how the subject has come to be organized into sub-disciplines. The second chapter explains the basic concepts of atomic structure and bonding. The third chapter offers the basics of thermodynamics, and the fourth describes the nature of chemical reactions. The fifth chapter describes the methods that are used in the study of chemistry. The last two chapters are a bit different. They tell the reader what chemists have produced (for good and bad) and what directions the discipline is likely to take in the future, respectively.

Many of the AVSI books contain simple, monochromatic graphics, but this particular one includes only a copy of the Periodic Table. There may be points in the book that would benefit from a graphic, but I can’t say that I noticed the absence when I was reading. Let’s face it; on the microscopic level of chemistry takes place, any graphic would likely be a greatly simplified abstraction any way.

I’d recommend this for those seeking a quick guide to the subject of chemistry for those who forgot or never learned the subject.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Elements by Theodore Gray

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Elements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the UniverseElements: A Visual Exploration of Every Known Atom in the Universe by Theodore Gray
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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What element makes up most of your body by weight? Are diamonds really the hardest known material on Earth? How can you tell a genuine neon light from one that doesn’t contain any actual neon? Are silicon-based life forms really a possibility? How did phosphorous contribute to a human population explosion? How can one tell whether one’s “Titanium” golf club actually contains titanium? What is tin used for–given that it’s not tin cans, tin foil, or tin roofs? Which noble gas has been caught forming compounds with common elements? Why do welders have to get x-rays before an MRI? Why does Ytterby, Sweden have four elements named after it? Why are gorilla lovers boycotting tantalum? Which is better for committing homicide: Thallium or Polonium? [Hint: The answer depends on whether you want to send a message or not—if you know what I mean.] How much natural uranium can a private citizen possess in the US? Which, if any, of the elements named for people are named for the person who discovered them? These are the types of questions you’ll have answered while reading this book.

The most general question the book addresses is probably, how can one collect elements without setting the world on fire? [If that doesn’t make sense, I’d recommend Randall Munroe’s book “What If?” Munroe tells us what would happen if one tried to make a wall out of one square foot containers of each of the elements (in the form of the Periodic Table)? You’ll note that I said “tried to make” and not “made,” and that should tell you something.] Gray is an element collector, and the many photographs for each element show examples of the forms (including manufactured products) in which a given element can be acquired. You’ll also find out where the gaps will remain in your collection of pure elements. [On a related note, you’ll learn which elements are radioactive.] You also may be interested to hear what element sample the FBI confiscated from the author’s collection [hint: it wasn’t Uranium or Plutonium.]

The organization of the book is straight forward. There’s front matter that gives one a rudimentary primer on chemistry and the periodic table in order to refresh the knowledge that has fallen out of your brain since high school or college. But the bulk of the book consists of one short chapter for each element. The chapters each have a cover page containing a photo and some technical information about the element that will only be of interest to the very nerdiest of nerds. Then there’s a page or so of text, which gives some interesting factoids about the element and how it’s used. Finally, there’s a collection of photos of the element and some products that contain it—with one notable exception.

I enjoyed this book. It’s a quick read, but provides a lot of interesting information. And the author’s sense of humor shines here and there.

I read this book on a Kindle Touch. I mention this because true element groupies may find this less than ideal because of the lack of color. However, for me it was fine. Furthermore, the e-book formatting was good. Sometimes books with a lot of graphics don’t work out so well, but in this case it was not a problem.

I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in science, though if you know a lot about chemistry you may find it a bit remedial.

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BOOK REVIEW: Life from Elsewhere from Pushkin Press

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Life from Elsewhere: Journeys Through World LiteratureLife from Elsewhere: Journeys Through World Literature by Amit Chaudhuri

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

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“Life from Elsewhere” is a collection of essays written by writers from around the world on culture, multiculturalism, and the struggles of life (and writing) in a culture-infused world. The book consists of an introduction and ten essays by authors from India, Congo, Argentina / Spain, China, Israel, Syria, Palestine, Iran, Poland, Russia, and Turkey. It’s being put out to celebrate the 10 year anniversary of a program that seeks to translate more global literature into English (English PEN’s Writers in Translation.)

This was a hard work to rate, and so you may want to take the number of stars with a grain of salt. If you’re part of the niche audience of contemporary world literature devotees, you may love this book from beginning to end. For a more general reader—such as myself–there are golden nuggets scattered among a field of shiny gravel. I found the essays by Asmaa al-Ghul (i.e. “When Ideas Fall in Line”) and Andrey Kurkov (i.e. “Sea of Voices”) to be fascinating, even for the general reader. The former tells the story of a journalist who reaped a firestorm by posting a Facebook picture sans veil, but it offers insight into life under blockade in Gaza. The latter offers a Russian author’s experience of traveling in the Middle East, and the incidences of clash of cultures it offers was thought-provoking.

The countries represented by authors in this book are well chosen. Authors were chosen from locales that would have once been underrepresented in such a work. However, one might question the fact that half of the essays are from countries of the Middle East. While this may seem odd, one must admit that a writer or artist in most of the Middle East faces challenges that a writer from Osaka, Sao Paulo, or Prague would not. This isn’t only addressed in the al-Ghul essay mentioned above, but also in pieces such as those by Mahmoud Dowlatabadi (i.e. “Literature: Forbidden, Defied,”) and Elif Shafak (i.e. “A Rallying Cry for Cosmopolitan Europe.”)

I’d recommend this book for ardent devotees of contemporary global literature. Other readers will gain insight into what it’s like to be an artist in a world defined by culture–and particularly fascinating insight into cultures which are threatened by modern literature—and should make up their mind about how fascinating they find said topic. (Otherwise, one may find the book a bit dry.)

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BOOK REVIEW: The Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran

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The Tell-Tale BrainThe Tell-Tale Brain by V.S. Ramachandran
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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A brain injury patient simultaneously becomes demented and develops a previously unwitnessed artistic talent. Another patient’s brain lights up identically when seeing another person being poked as it does when he, himself, is prodded. An amputee brushed on a specific area of the cheek has a sensation in a specific area of the lost limb—i.e. phantom limb sensations can be mapped to points on the face. A stroke victim develops “metaphor blindness,” and suddenly “the 800 pound gorilla” becomes an actual gorilla. A test subject’s right angular gyrus has an electrical charge delivered to it through an electrode and the person has an instantaneous out-of-body experience. There are temporal lobe epilepsy patients who literally feel one with other people—or, in some cases, the natural world in general. These are just a few of the fascinating cases that Dr. Ramachandran presents in “The Tell-Tale Brain.” Many of these phenomena would have once been attributed to purely psychological or spiritual causes, but now their biological origins in the brain are being revealed.

Dr. Ramachandran is a neuroscientist whose claim to fame is making a noteworthy contribution to our understanding of the brain using mostly low-tech and non-invasive experiments with subjects who have brain abnormalities or injuries. Before there was EEG (electroencephalogram) and fMRI (functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging) machines, much of what scientists learned about the brain came from determining what capabilities were lost (or, occasionally, gained) by patients who had specific brain damage. In this way, we gained a great deal of insight into what areas of the brain are responsible for what tasks and we’ve learned that many aspects of the mind that were largely thought to be beyond biology are—in fact–not. It’s fascinating to see what bizarre effects can result from brain damage or abnormalities, from people who think they are dead to others who want to have a limb amputated because it doesn’t feel like it belongs to them to yet others who think their loved ones are imposters.

The central question addressed by this book is best summarized by a quote from the book’s introduction: “Are we merely chimps with a software upgrade?” Ramachandran proposes that any answer to this question that can be scientifically investigated must reside in the brain. Most of our organs and our general structure are not that different from those of our primate brethren. But our brains are infinitely more capable than those of other species. In responding to the question, Ramachandran considers the brain’s role in topics like language, aesthetics, and belief that are the sole domain of Homo sapiens. One of the most interesting discussions is how our brains fill in the blanks and a give meaning to what we see, such that we sometimes find signs in random data streams. The final chapter deals with introspection and how we come to define ourselves by what we think and what we feel and here Ramachandran gets into some of the most fascinating conditions mentioned in the book, such as Cotard Syndrome in which subjects firmly believe that they don’t exist.

There are a few topics that he delves into in particularly deep detail. One of these topics is that of mirror neurons. These neurons are integral to our relationships with others and are essential to our ability to learn. They fire in mimicry of movement (e.g. facial expressions) we see others perform. The author also uses his work with phantom limbs and synesthesia to illuminate the workings of the brain. Phantom limbs occur when an amputee can still feel sensations in the amputated limb. While phantom limbs were at one time believed to be residue of the soul or the like, studies have offered insights into its origins in the brain. Synesthesia is when the brain is mis-wired such that there is a blending of the senses. As an example, a person might see a different color associated with each musical note or with each number. Synesthesia was once considered a delusion and people were institutionalized for this cross-wiring of the brain. Autism is also addressed in a chapter, and-in particular—the theory that this affliction may be linked to the mirror neurons.

I found this book to be fascinating and insightful. While it delves into our tremendously complex brains, it does so in a readable and comprehensible manner. The fact that Ramachandran’s focus is largely on low-tech and relatively simple experiments means that one can readily understand them in a manner that one might not with studies based on fMRIs or EEGs.

I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in the magnificent human brain.

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BOOK REVIEW: The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi by Peter M. Wayne & Mark Fuerst

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The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi: 12 Weeks to a Healthy Body, Strong Heart, and Sharp MindThe Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi: 12 Weeks to a Healthy Body, Strong Heart, and Sharp Mind by Peter Wayne
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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This book provides an overview (and a laymen-friendly literature review) of the scientific findings about tai chi, and it helps a beginner get started in his / her own practice. (Tai chi, short for tai chi chuan, is a Chinese martial art that is called an internal–or soft–style.)

The authors achieve an impressive tightrope act. And they manage to do it in a way that reads sincerely, while at the same time providing useful information for all readers. Often books on the science of Eastern health-enhancing activities (e.g. tai chi, chi gong, or yoga)–even if they are positive on the results of such activities—take digs at people’s beliefs about ideas like chi, prana, meridians, or chakra as the authors attempt to distance themselves from such beliefs. On the other hand, books that cater to the spiritually inclined—even when they are couched in scientific terms—may resort to third-hand anecdotes about the supernatural powers of some ancient master or report methodological train wrecks that support their views alongside sound studies, as long as the latter don’t present any evidence contrary to their belief system. In short, such books often talk in scientific lingo while showing a complete lack of understanding of the scientific method. In this book, Wayne manages to navigate these rocky shores because he’s both a scientist and a longtime tai chi practitioner who genuinely accepts that there may be more at work in the practice than science fully understands. Thus, he knows the importance of testable hypotheses and when a study needs to be validated by more a robust follow-up study, but he also reports on the traditional beliefs and isn’t adverse to writing about studies evaluating the benefits of spirituality (note: showing that being spiritual has benefits doesn’t mean that the benefits result from anything spiritual or supernatural.)

The book has 14 chapters divided into three parts. The first part introduces the reader to tai chi, describes the dimensions along which tai chi has been shown to offer benefits (the authors call these “the 8 active ingredients of Tai Chi,” relating them to pharmacological medicines), and explains how tai chi can be simplified for beginners (even the short form sequences take a while to be memorized—let alone building any grasp of the intricacies of said forms.) The second part consists of six chapters that report the findings of studies on the health effects of tai chi, as well as discussing the possible mechanisms of those benefits. The topics discussed in this section include: increased balance, bone density, pain mitigation, cardiovascular health, mental performance, psychological well-being, and sleep quality. The book’s last part suggests ways in which the reader can build a tai chi practice. The five chapters in this section deal with the interactive practices of tai chi (tai chi isn’t just the solo forms that you’ve seen elderly people do in the park), integrating tai chi with other health and fitness practices, the potential for practicing tai chi at work, the role of tai chi in creative practices, and tai chi as a practice of lifelong learning (this last chapter gives beginners tips about how to start a practice.) There is also an afterword about how tai chi might play a part in building improved health and well-being in the present era.

I found the book to be well-organized to achieve its objective. It’s packed with food for thought. Neophytes will find a lot of benefit in this book, but I suspect even advanced practitioners can glean insights—particularly if said advanced practitioner hasn’t been reading up on the scientific findings. Humor, quotes, and stories are used to lighten the tone and illustrate key points. There are some photos and other graphics where needed (mostly in chapter 3), but they are relatively sparse for a book on a practice like tai chi. (That’s not a complaint. I think there are far too many attempts to teach movement arts through books—an impossible task—and not enough effort put into conveying the kind of ancillary information that is transmissible in book form.)

I’d recommend this book for anyone who’s interested in knowing more about the health benefits of tai chi, and moving beyond the platitudes often heard but seldom evaluated.

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BOOK REVIEW: What is Life? by Addy Pross

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What Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes BiologyWhat Is Life?: How Chemistry Becomes Biology by Addy Pross
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Dr. Pross’s book shares a title (but not a subtitle) with the seminal work by the renowned physicist Erwin Schrödinger from 1944. While Schrödinger addresses a wide range of topics on how life might be explained in terms of physics and chemistry, Pross’s focus is narrower. Pross asks—and proposes an answer for—the straightforward (but thorny) question of how abiogenesis could occur. Abiogenesis is life from the non-living. Darwin did an excellent job of explaining how we could get from single-celled organisms to the great complexity we see in our own bodies, but Darwin didn’t touch the question of how that very first ancestor became animated.

The subtitle of this work, “How Chemistry Becomes Biology,” gives one insight into how Pross proceeds. There’ve been many ideas about how life came to be on planet Earth over the years. For a time, the idea of panspermia—life arriving from an extraterrestrial source—was popular. Of course, the most popular belief has been that there was a force of life (i.e. an “élan vital”) breathed into non-living matter by a, presumably, supernatural force / entity. While the awe-inspiring nature of life made this idea appealing / believable, it took a hit from the Urey-Miller experiments. Said experiment exposed the four materials believed to have been the most common in our pre-biologic atmosphere (hydrogen, ammonia, methane, and water vapor) to lightning, and the result included a range of organic materials—including amino acids–the building blocks of… well, us, among the other life forms of the planet. Of course, Urey-Miller didn’t make abiogenesis a foregone conclusion, but the production of ever more complex self-replicating molecules under laboratory conditions has made it easier to digest the notion that life developed without any intelligent or supernatural push.

While Pross’s ideas are at the stage of hypothesis, he develops a compelling explanation that revolves around the idea of dynamic kinetic stability. “Dynamic Kinetic Stability” is a mouthful, and so it’s necessary to break it down. The best place to start is with the “stability” part. This is because the biggest problem for an abiogenetical theory of life is the Second Law of Thermodynamics. The Second Law tells us that entropy increases. There are many ways of restating this, such as that chemical reactions move to states that are of lower free energy. However, the most intuitive way is to say that a beer mugs break but do not spontaneously pop into existence. So if everything is getting simpler by deteriorating, breaking, and decomposing, how does one get / maintain a stable state of complexity? First and foremost, the answer involves adding a lot of energy and resources, but there’s more to it than that–as the author explains. “Dynamic” can also be explained in complex terms, but it’s most easily thought of as being like a river in that the river’s existence is stable, but it’s always a different river—ever changing water molecules arranged differently. (Critically, our bodies are the same way. Except for neurons, our cells are constantly being replaced.) The term “kinetic” speaks to how said replacement takes place; replication must be fast and decay slow.

The appeal of the ideas put forth by Pross is that they’re conceptually consistent with Darwinian Evolution. That is, an entirely new set of principles isn’t necessary to make sense of the origins of life. Pross argues that the self-replicating molecules that can most effectively put resources to use succeed in doing so, and—in the process–they drive others into extinction.

I found this book interesting and readable. The author uses good analogies to make his points (which often deal in complex matter) as clearly as possible. I can’t disagree with the other reviewers who’ve pointed out that the book is a bit repetitive and drags out a relatively simple statement of the argument. It’s not so egregious that I could say that it’s necessarily the result of a desire to pad the book out to a length necessary to sell in hard-copy form. (But it might have been.) The understanding of this topic is in its infancy, but that doesn’t mean this book isn’t a valuable contribution to popular understanding of abiogenesis.

I’d recommend this book for anyone interested in reflecting on from whence we came in a fashion that is open-minded to explanations that eschew the supernatural.

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BOOK REVIEW: Fight Like a Physicist by Jason Thalken

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Fight Like a Physicist: The Incredible Science Behind Martial ArtsFight Like a Physicist: The Incredible Science Behind Martial Arts by Jason Thalken
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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When I saw this book’s title, I imagined a bloodied and battered Poindexter in a bow-tie–a professorial type dying in a puddle of his own bodily fluids as he calculated the Bayesian probability of winning given that initial beating. After all, physics is a highly cerebral activity, and being cerebral in a fight is a certain path to a beat down. However, Thalken makes a good point with his explanation of the title (and the book’s theme.) He’s suggesting that one use tactics and techniques that are supported by evidence and rooted in a sound understanding of the science of combat—as opposed to mindlessly doing whatever your sensei tells you or–worse yet–just muddling through on a combination of instinct and ignorance. In short, be skeptical, but inquiring. It turns out that there is a time for a fighter to be cerebral, but it’s when they are making decisions about how to train.

The book is divided into two parts. The first part explains how classical mechanics can help one to be a better fighter. There are four chapters in this section that deal with center of mass and its crucial role in a fight, the differences between high momentum and high energy strikes and how each is achieved, differences in circular versus linear paths and where the advantage in each lies, and what simple machines (i.e. levers and wedges) can do for a fighter. This section is what one would expect from such a book. Unlike the second section, which deals largely with sport fighters, the advice on offer in the first section is as applicable to those involved in self-defense or other real world combative situations as it is to fighters in the ring.

The second section examines the issue of concussions and brain damage in some detail, including consideration of the degree to which gloves and headgear do—or don’t—make one safer. The reader gains great insight into the mechanics and neuroscience of a knockout. While the majority of the section offers advice for those engaged in combative sports, the last two chapters take a bit of a turn. The first of these two deals with the myths perpetuated by Hollywood—which, let’s face it, is the source of most people’s information on what combat is. Debunking the notion that a person who gets shot is always and everywhere instantly incapacitated is a central theme this chapter. The last chapter deals with the issue of pseudoscience in the martial arts, and the insanity of believing one can defeat an opponent with chi (also qi, or—in Japanese Romanization–ki) or mind power alone. These last two chapters seem like a turn from the main theme of the book, but they do stay under the umbrella of the martial arts through a scientific lens.

While this is a book about science, it’s readable even for an educated non-scientist. All the math is put in boxes that the reader can opt to skip, or to follow, depending upon his or her comfort level with equations. There is no complex jargon, nor any incomprehensible concepts. The physics is largely high school level Newtonian mechanics.

Diehard believers in the supernatural or pseudo-scientific conceptions of the universe should be warned that this isn’t the book for you unless you like your sacred cows flame-broiled. You won’t learn about chi (qi) in this book except to be reminded that it’s a make-believe concept.

I’d recommend this book for those who are interested in how science can be applied to the martial arts or human movement more generally. It’s short, readable, and offers some interesting food for thought.

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BOOK REVIEW: Why Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert Sapolsky

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Why Zebras Don't Get UlcersWhy Zebras Don’t Get Ulcers by Robert M. Sapolsky
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

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Sapolsky’s book examines why stress and stress-related illnesses are rampant in humans. As the title suggests, prey on the Serengeti Plain, animals that are chased by fierce and fast predators, aren’t nearly so likely to suffer the ill effects of stress—despite living in a harsher world than most of humanity. To oversimplify, this has a lot to do with the fact that one downside of our big brains is an ability to obsess about what has happened and what might happen, and our sympathetic nervous system (i.e. the fight or flight mechanism) can be triggered even when there is no immediate threat in reality. In short, humans can uniquely worry themselves to death. Sapolsky gets into much great detail and lets the reader know what is known and what remains to be uncovered with respect to stress.

In almost 600 pages, arranged into 18 chapters, Sapolsky covers human stress in fine detail. While it’s a book written for a lay audience, it’s not a quick and easy read. The book discusses topics like the action of neurotransmitters and hormones, and, while it assumes no particular science background, it does assume a broadly educated and curious reader.

The chapters begin by looking at the stress mechanism from a physiological perspective. It then considers stress with respect to specific illnesses, the relationship between stress and various other topics in human being (e.g. sleep, pain, and memory.) The final chapter offers insight into how one can reduce one’s bad stress and one’s risk of stress-related illness. Among the most interesting topics are what personalities are particularly prone to stress-related illness and why psychological stress (as opposed to stress based in immediate real world stressors) is stressful.

Sapolsky has a sense of humor and knows how to convey information to a non-expert audience, but this isn’t the simplest book on the subject. It’s an investment of time and energy to complete reading this book, but it’s worth it if one’s interest in the subject is extensive enough. One of the strengths of the book is that it stays firmly in the realm of science. Because stress has been wrongly considered a fluff subject, many of the works on the topic—even those by individuals with MD or PhD after their names—have been new-agey or pseudo-scientific. This book stays firmly in the realm of science. Sapolsky explains what the studies have shown, and he tells the reader clearly when there is a dearth of evidence or contradictory findings.

If the reader has a deep interest in stress-related health problems, I’d highly recommend this book.

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BOOK REVIEW: Adventures in Human Being by Gavin Francis

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Adventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the CalcaneumAdventures in Human Being: A Grand Tour from the Cranium to the Calcaneum by Gavin Francis
My rating: 5 of 5 stars

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Dr. Francis’s book of essays takes one on a fascinating anatomical cook’s tour—literally from head to toe. The book uses patient case histories, tales from med school, great moments in medical history, and even references to art and pop culture to intrigue the reader with the awesome nature of the human body. This isn’t the kind of book that tries to tell one everything there is to know on a subject. Rather it drills deep on specific subjects, but with humor and readability. While the book examines specific issues pertaining to the body part under consideration, it gives the layman reader the necessary background to comprehend even the most complex topics, often through interesting factoids.

In 18 chapters divided into seven parts by regions of the body, one will learn about topics such as: electroconvulsive therapy (ECT), the almost ancient art of cataract surgery, botoxing of Bell’s Palsy patients, how the Epley manoeuver is used to seemingly miraculously cure vertigo through snappy head movements, why Renaissance thinkers thought the soul resided in the lips, why having one’s blood circulated pulselessly causes problems, how a “Brachial stun” immobilizes an arm, why suicidal wrist slashers rarely succeed, where the nail goes in a proper crucifixion, how kidneys became the gift that keeps giving, how a scratch on the hand almost cost a gardener her life and what her liver did to save her, why your bowel movements matter, how fetoliths (i.e. “stone babies”) come to reside in the abdomens of older women, why–in some cultures–it’s necessary to eat the afterbirth while others insist on burying it under the house, why the hip’s blood supply is lacking, and how the foot is really more specialized and consequential to human existence than our hands and their well-publicized opposable thumbs.

My wife got me this book after seeing it on the list of the best books of 2015 put out by “The Economist” magazine. It was an excellent choice and it moved it quickly to the front of my reading list. I’d highly recommend it for anyone interested in science, medicine, anatomy, physiology, or the human body.

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