Bryson is a wonderful travel guide, and this time around he takes us through an enjoyable tour of the human body. The book is surprisingly detailed, fBryson is a wonderful travel guide, and this time around he takes us through an enjoyable tour of the human body. The book is surprisingly detailed, for a popular-science book. Bryson exhibits his usual knack for the extraordinary and unusual, but despite veering close to it at times, he avoids the pitfall of making this book just a tour of the oddities of the human body.
Bryson takes just enough such detours to keep us amused, but just like a good tour guide ensures that we are adequately educated as well. The best thing about Bryson, as best exhibited in A Short History of Nearly Everything, is his knack to make everything he touches so memorable. I am sure if a quiz was added after each chapter, most of his readers would fare very well in them. Did you know it takes more time for food to move through a woman's digestive system, than a man's? Who would've thought to include that in an anatomy book?
However, is this the best book to pick up if you are interested in reading about the Human Body? It might be the most fun book, but I am sure even Bryson would recommend Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body over his own book if you could read just one anatomy book. After all, he refers to Lieberman so often that it sometimes feels like this whole book is nothing but a detailed review of Lieberman's magnum opus. If you can spare the time for two, by all means, get both.
Towards the end, Bryson comes to the real point of why we are reading the book - how to keep ourselves healthy. He takes us through a tour of nutrition science, exercise science and even of mortality. In the end, Bryson leaves us with the message that it is not that difficult to live a good life - you just have to take good care of your most precious resource - your Body....more
Sapolsky serves up the most broad-ranging and accessible examination of human behavior. The sheer scope of the book is daunting, but thankfully SapolsSapolsky serves up the most broad-ranging and accessible examination of human behavior. The sheer scope of the book is daunting, but thankfully Sapolsky is an expert guide, taking us one step at a time through how what influences actions, what influences thoughts, how the human brain evolved, how the brain itself did... always one step back at a time - so that the reader is never overwhelmed. (especially by the increasingly inevitable conclusion - of no true free will)
This narrative structure is what makes this book a possibility for even the n00b reader - Sapolsky begins with a simple act which you can do while reading, like reaching for a glass of water, and then works backward to explain it chapter by chapter: one second before, seconds to minutes before, hours to days before, days to months before, and so on back through adolescence, the crib, the womb, and ultimately centuries and millennia in the past, all the way to our evolutionary ancestors and the origin of our moral emotions. Getting deep into the weeds at every single point.
Anyone who has read Pinker's Better Angels, would do well with this corrective dose. Pinker focuses on the human and exalts it, Sapolsky expands our horizon to the whole world and shows us a better vision of what it means to be human and what it means to 'progress'. Sapolsky Vs Pinker is the contemporary Hobbes-versus-Rousseau (Pinker is Hobbes, btw, just in case). Don't miss it.
[Sapolsky agrees with the thesis that our lives have improved, this is a debate of nuance - “Anyone who says that our worst behaviors are inevitable knows too little about primates, including us.”]
This is a book about limits - of the human brain, of human emotions, of human knowledge, capability, altruism, etc. But in those limits, we find the true potential of what it means to be human, at our best and our worst....more
Read this to supplement the wonderful West End play Photograph 51, by Anna Ziegler. The original had Nicole Kidman as Dr. Franklin. Last weekend at BaRead this to supplement the wonderful West End play Photograph 51, by Anna Ziegler. The original had Nicole Kidman as Dr. Franklin. Last weekend at Bangalore, we had the privilege of watching Bangalore Little Theatre put on an energetic and thought-provoking performance of the "race" to discover the secret of life. Worth a watch.
Maddox's work is a standard biography and checks all the boxes. Nothing special about the treatment, but it covers all the aspects. Of course, after the drama of the compact 90 minute play, the book length treatment felt a bit drawn out, but the consistency of themes across the long book and the short play is remarkable - how the working atmosphere at the boy's club type King's contributed to the isolation of the person who deserved to win the race, how the "race" was never really a "race" according to the honor code of British universities, and also how scheming Watson really turned out to be. The book goes on to show us Dr. Franklin's life beyond the "race" to establish that no she was not a dark lady who could not work with a team - she went on to do brilliant work as part of a team, she went on to get results that led to another Nobel prize, etc. It was the atmosphere of the lab and the friction with Wilkins that led to the "race" being lost.
Her's was the most vital contribution in the epic discovery of the secret of life and feminists across the world has taken her as an icon of the repressed female genius. But, the most elegant aspect of the story is how Dr. Franklin never once expresses the slightest disappointment or resentment of being robbed of recognition. As far as she was concerned, she was the preeminent expert in her field, and did her work admirably well, better than any man or woman could. And that was enough....more
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