Teach-Secondary-Issue-14.5

Off the Shelves Brilliant titles for you and your students to explore Adaptable:TheSurprising ScienceofHumanDiversity (HermanPontzer,AllenLane,£25) You could be forgiven for thinking a book by an evolutionary anthropologist would hold little relevance formost people.As the title suggests, the subject under discussion here is how human physiology has developed in different ways, in response to different conditions around the world – and yet it’s a highly informative read, centring on how our bodies work, and causes of, and solutions to modernmaladies such as heart disease and type 2 diabetes. Indeed, it’s themost readable (and comprehensible) book about human biology I’ve ever read. In one chapter, for example, Pontzer describes in step-by- step detail what happens to a cheeseburger fromthemoment it enters yourmouth to the subsequent waste disposal. Packed as it is with similar such explanations and revelations,with a soupçon of light humour thrown in, it comes highly recommended. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman (see bit.ly/Eclecticism formore details) TheLibraryofAncientWisdom: MesopotamiaandtheMaking ofHistory (SelenaWisnom,AllenLane,£30) A fascinating account of the daily lives lived by people thousands of years ago. Howdo we know such details? The library housing their accumulatedwisdomwas set on fire, but the ‘books’ in said librarywere clay tablets.The fire’s heat hardened those tablets into ceramic, thereby ensuring their preservation formillennia.Thus,we learn howwriting was first invented, and the eerie similarities between some stories of the time and those recorded (much later) in The Bible. Some achievements seem remarkable, such as the discovery of Pythagoras’ theorema thousand years before Pythagoras was born.Other practices seemutterly alien tomodern eyes – divination using a sheep’s entrails, anyone?We also hear about the work being done to preserve ceramicmicrofilm for tomorrow’s historians. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman PenNames (KirstyMcHugh& IanScott,Bodleian,£14.99) All life is containedwithin these pages – because who could have guessed that behind the innocent-seeming name onmany a book cover lie all manner of secrets? The case of the Brontës is well-known –male- sounding writers’ names generallymaking more sense in an age when novel-writing wasn’t seen as being respectable, thus shining a light on important aspects of social and economic history at the time. But a pen name was also used in at least one case when an author wanted to hide his royalties fromhis estrangedwife.Many other pen names have been adopted formarketing purposes – such as those times when an author wishes to branch out into a completely different genre.Andwere you aware that well-known author Nicci French is, in fact, two people? A slim, yet enjoyable volume, it’s a treasure trove of unexpected insights into the storied history of the publishing industry. ReviewedbyTerry Freedman 38 teachwire.net/secondary