Oliver Sacks meets Bear Grylls in this unique voyage around the human body, from the prize-winning author of Empire Antarctica
Gavin Francis is a GP, and the author of True North and Empire Antarctica: Ice, Silence & Emperor Penguins, which won the Scottish Book of the Year Award and was shortlisted for the Ondaatje Prize and Costa Prize. He also writes for Guardian, The Times, London Review of Books and Granta. He lives in Edinburgh with his wife and children.
A sober and beautiful book about the landscape of the human body:
thought-provoking and eloquent.
*Hilary Mantel*
Wonderful, subtle, unpretentious ... produces a kind of complicity
between the author, the reader, and the subject
*John Berger*
I read this book transfixed... The style is crisp and fast and the
human tales irresistible. I was left with many nuggets.
*The Times*
In Francis's beautifully written, exquisitely thoughtful, and
completely captivating cartography, the body is a superbly-lit
museum filled with treasures, and Dr. Francis the perfect guide who
deftly weaves together science and story to reveal the wondrous
flesh-and-blood underpinnings of our daily lives. It's a
spellbinding view.
*Diane Ackerman, author of The Zookeeper’s Wife and The Human
Age*
So enthralling and so well written that it should win its own
clutch of prizes... immensely engaging and often unexpected. His
achievement here is to guide readers through his special landscape
with such eloquence and subtlety.
*Sunday Times*
Grand, eloquent stuff, occasionally humorous, frequently moving and
invariably informative... The end result is a thoroughly
entertaining, provocative work.
*The Observer*
A quietly radical, three-dimensional view of issues such as
reproduction, birth, death and disability that has the power, at
times, to make you stop mid-sentence and carefully reassess some of
your most basic assumptions... its greatest strength is its
profound yet understated compassion.
*The Scotsman*
The joy of Mr Francis's work lies in the fact that although he
delights in the body's physical reality, he takes care not to
reduce human experience to that alone.
*The Economist*
A beautifully written, elegant series of essays - both medical and
literary - that conveys wonderfully well the fascination, mystery
and beauty that is to be found in our bodies.
*Henry Marsh*
Adventures in Human Being could be described as a road map to the
flesh, written by a guide who is scrupulously attentive to the
details of how we work and exquisitely aware of the glimpses of the
soul behind the machinery. Francis is not only an experienced
doctor but also steeped in both the classics and contemporary
literature. His breadth is not just impressive but entirely
convincing.
*New Statesman*
A wise and lyrical tour of the human body
*The Scottish Herald*
A beautifully written guide to our wonders and weaknesses that
combines the precision of science with a profound insight into the
human condition.
*Guardian*
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