The Secret Family: Twenty-Four Hours Inside the Mysterious World of Our Minds and Bodies - Hardcover

Bodanis, David

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0684810190 ISBN 13: 9780684810195

Publisher: Simon & Schuster, 1997

Synopsis

State-of-the-art photography complements the descriptions of physiological changes that occur during everyday events such as a diet, an argument, and a kiss, in an exploration of the effects of the outside world on our insides

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Reviews

What this volume reveals about the everyday world we live in may shatter forever the equanimity with which you regard the bed you lie on, the air you breathe, or even your loved ones. Bodanis, a Londoner who writes for the Economist and the Guardian, continues the microscopic, sometimes subatomic, examination of interior and exterior worlds he initiated in The Secret House (1986) and The Body Book (1984). By selecting a family of five, Bodanis gives himself a varied world to explore, covering everything from the most minute habitual processes going on in their bodies to the ingredients of the common products they most frequently use. He shows us such varied matters as teenage hormones in action, the manner in which stimuli shape the development of an infant's brain, and the physiology of a couch potato. There's another family, too, the unseen one of microbes, mites, and macrophages that live on the skin, float in the air, and settle on bedding and carpets. Bodanis describes them lovingly. As the family gathers for breakfast, he gleefully reveals that baby food contains chalk dust, as well as ground-up animal bowels and nostrils, and that orange-juice concentrate has embalming fluid in it. Later, a trip to the mall lets him show the family swapping microbes with others, inhaling and swallowing various chemicals, and being subconsciously influenced by Muzak and store displays. Included are extreme closeups of a sneeze, a mosquito bite, and a kiss. The picture that emerges is not a pretty one, but it is frequently fascinating. While trivia abounds--the direction of fingerprint whorls, the thickness of bubble-bath bubbles--and at times threatens to overwhelm, Bodanis's enthusiasm carries the day. Not for the squeamish, but possibly the perfect gift for a science-minded teenager. (photos, not seen) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Bodanis chronicles the churn of life invisible to the naked eye. In The Secret Garden (1992), he described the microscopic intensity in a pinch of soil; here he takes on a far more complicated realm--a typical human family and their environs. As Bodanis charts a hypothetical day, he explodes the usual sense of time, place, and narrative by peeling back the surface of things and exposing the busy world of tiny creatures, particles, and molecules. At breakfast, for instance, he nauseates the reader with a description of the contents of commercial baby food, then catalogs what exactly toasters and refrigerators contribute to the atmosphere. He also analyzes dust, introduces "parallel families" of mites, explains why milk is soothing and coffee invigorating, and lists the chemicals present in a postage stamp, cosmetics, and cat saliva. All this information is interspersed with cultural and social observations regarding parenting, child development, and puberty, and if you think the kitchen is wild, wait until he gets to the mall. Donna Seaman

Bodanis, of The Secret House (1986) and The Secret Garden (LJ 11/1/92) fame, here looks microscopically at a family of four in their microorganism-ridden, poison-spewing, neurotransmitter-driven splendor: Bodanis has never met a dust mite he couldn't describe arrestingly, nor a processed food product he couldn't make forever unappetizing. The set-up here is often the travel patterns of bacteria and the chemical interactions of human and environment, right down to the intimate and romantic sharing of E. gingivalis during a teenage girl's first kiss. Great yucky fun for everyone, especially those interested in the science of the unseen world. Bodanis is a marvelous science writer for lay and professional readers alike. A wonderful acquisition for general collections and essential for school collections?this is the sort of book that turns grade schoolers into science lovers.?Mark L. Shelton, Univ. of Massachusetts Medical Ctr., Worcester
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Simon & Schuster
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0684810190
• ISBN 13: 9780684810195
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224