"[Michael Sims] has the breadth, if not the depth, of Montaigne or Robert Burton or Sir Thomas Browne, the whimsical omnivorousness of the 18th-century essayists, and he is as bigheartedly inclusive as Samuel Johnson, one of his particular heroes... Nothing is too large or too small to merit Sims's attention... This is an entertaining, witty and erudite jackdaw's nest of a book. Sims seems not only to have read everything, the trivial as well as the lofty, but to have remembered all of it. The range of reference is dizzying."

John Banville
(Irish novelist, author of Eclipse, The Book of Evidence, and many other novels),
New York Times Book Review, Sunday 27 July 2003

"Michael Sims introduces you to your own body from a startlingly fresh perspective. A literary alchemist, he combines anatomy, evolution, literature, anthropology, history, and pop culture in an unpredictable brew, which he transmutes into reader's gold. Adam's Navel sparkles with wit, spice, and delicious word play. I was so utterly entertained, I was amazed at how much I had learned about being human."

Richard Milner, Senior Editor, Natural History Magazine, the American Museum of Natural History, and author of Darwin's Universe.

A New York Times Notable Book

A Library Journal Best Science Book

Featured in the New York Times Book Review, in a lead review by Booker-winning Irish novelist John Banville

Rave reviews from Britain, Australia, India, Spain, China, and elsewhere

Praised in the U.S. from Self to Entertainment Weekly, from the Washington Post Book World to Discover

Excerpted in the Chronicle of Higher Education

A great review by Deborah Blum, Pulitzer-winning science writer, former president of the National Association of Science Writers, and a member of the Board of Directors of the World Federation of Science Journalists

Selected by the Discovery Channel Book Club, the Quality Paperback Book Club, and Reader's Subscription

Featured on "Something You Should Know," "Daybreak USA," Minnesota Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Radio, and other NPR affiliates, as well as on BBC Radio in England; featured on public and commercial TV in numerous cities as part of the tour to San Francisco, Minneapolis, Cincinnati, Denver, Raleigh, Nashville, and elsewhere.

Taught in university-level advanced writing classes, art classes, and medical classes

A NOTE FROM MICHAEL SIMS:

I had a shameful amount of fun writing Adam's Navel. A couple of years after Darwin's Orchestra was published, the editorial director of Penguin U.K. wrote to tell me that he enjoyed the book and to ask if I might be interested in writing something for Penguin. Not surprisingly, I said yes. Shortly afterward, I sent the Penguin director the proposal for Adam's Navel, which he took on holiday and bought as soon as he returned. Several U.S. publishers were suddenly interested. After tracking me down in the North Carolina mountains to discuss the book via cell phone, Molly Stern at Viking bought Adam's Navel with a sudden pre-emptive bid. I learned this when my agent called while I was in the Asheville Art Museum. She still talks about how she could hear my surprised laughter echoing through the galleries. I was impressed that the curators didn't throw me out.

REVIEWS

"Each [chapter] bursts at the seams . . . . A fascinating chocolate box of a book."

—Daniel Campi, BARCELONA METROPOLITAN

"Michael Sims' clever new book ... is a truly eclectic mix of cultural, scientific and literary perspectives on the bits and pieces that make up a human body.... In his engaging, reader-friendly romp down the body, Sims keeps the course easy and mostly free of complex technical details.... The message to the reader is to think, but to have a good time doing so."

—Deborah Blum (Pulitizer Prize winner, author of Sex on the Brain: The Biological Differences Between Men and Women), MINNEAPOLIS STAR-TRIBUNE, 10 August 2003

"Highly erudite. A quite remarkable compendium of fact, fantasy, myth and personal musings on the topic of the human body."

—Judith Warner, WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

"A brilliant idea, executed with panache...."

—THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE

"Reading ... Adam's Navel is an interactive experience. Sims' lavish, accomplished prose infuses you with a delicious awareness of your own physicality, and you will want to investigate firsthand this fleshy object you inhabit.... Chapters are ordered according to body part, so if you pruriently desire to skip directly to the genitals, you can."

—Kim Rollins
MSNBC FALL 2003 BOOKLIST
(lead nonfiction recommendation)

"Something of an all-rounder and clearly as
comfortable writing about science as the arts, Michael
Sims .... is capable of explaining the science of the
human body to both the uninformed and the well-read....
Entertaining asides abound...."

—Steve Jelbert
"Fine Body of Work," THE TIMES (London)
9 August 2003

"An endlessly amusing essay...."

—NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW
Notable Books of the Year

"Everybody bare your body now! The human body has been one of the favorite subjects of study since time immemorial and yet there are a number of amazing facts about it that ordinary people have no clue about.. Adam's Navel reveals some of the most extraordinary facts about our bodies."

—THE TIMES OF INDIA

"Our bodies are typically overworked, underworked, or just neglected. But for Michael Sims the body is a site of fascination, to which he applies delicious prose."

—THE AUSTRALIAN

"An entertaining guide to the companion that we do not get to choose on our journey through life."

—EL PAIS (Madrid)

"A lighthearted exploration of the human body, drawing on myth, religion, art, pop culture, history, biology, and any other -ology that suits the purpose here: to delight, astound, and inform.... For each part [Sims] entwines physiology and culture, elucidating how a part functions, what it has come to mean, how it has entered our language and literature. Anecdotes abound.... Great fun."

—KIRKUS (starred)

"From Louis Armstrong's hurting lips to Dracula's prehensile toes, readers will be taken on a whirlwind tour of the human body. Culture confers meaning to every nook and cranny of our imortal coil., In exploring this nature/culture interface, Michael Sims displays an astonishing erudition and great feeling."

—Frans de Waal, primatologist at Emory, author of Chimpanzee Politics and The Ape and the Sushi Master

ANATOMY LESSONS: MICHAEL SIMS ASSEMBLES A LIVELY MOSAIC OF THE HUMAN BODY
"A fascinating, witty and startlingly original head-to-toe tour of the human body.... This is, frankly, exhilarating stuff, the product of a lively, learned and delightfully idiosyncratic mind. Sims is eloquent in his conviction that 'an acquaintance with a wide variety of cultural and scientific topics enriches my experience of walking through the day.'... Sims adds: 'We perceive everything through the body; we express everything through the body; therefore culture seems to be an emanation from the body.'"

—Alden Mudge, BOOKPAGE
August 2003

"Though we can imagine the angelic, we are fundamentally corporeal beings, as Michael Sims makes abundantly clear in his witty and informative book, Adam's Navel. Sims invites us to rediscover the body through a bemused observation of its manifold parts, natural history, and colorful lore. This marvelous mix of anatomy and culture will awaken readers to the sensual and symbolic richness our flesh is heir to."

—Marilyn Yalom, sociologist at Stanford, author of A History of the Breast and A History of the Wife

"A Noah's Ark of our obsessions with the most powerful symbol in history, the human body. From Shakespeare to pop culture, Sims lays the body bare."

—The Big Issue (England)

"From Houdini's toes (astonishingly dexterous) to Charlton Heston's hair (prophetically regal), Sims surveys the ways in which cultural ingenuity has embellished and interpreted the biological endowments of the human body.... Sims entertains us with the amazing strategies humans have devised for displaying, manipulating, and encoding our body parts.... A lively and wide-ranging excursion."

—Bryce Christensen, Booklist

"What an intelligent, original book! Sims is able to take us "our bodies" apart and show us the ways in which we see ourselves, with wisdom, wit and unobtrusive erudition. Utterly delightful!"

—Alberto Manguel, author of Reading Pictures and A History of Reading