Search Results: Returned 2 Results, Displaying Titles 1 - 2
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[2015], Basic Books, a member of the Perseus Books Group Call No: SC 612 F818a Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: "We assume we know our bodies intimately, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. How many of us understand the way seizures affect the brain, how the heart is connected to wellbeing, or the why the foot carries the key to our humanity? In Adventures in Human Being, award-winning author Gavin Francis leads readers on a journey into the hidden pathways of the human body, offering a guide to its inner workings and a celebration of its marvels. Drawing on his experiences as a surgeon, ER specialist, and family physician, Francis blends stories from the clinic with episodes from medical history, philosophy, and literature to describe the body in sickness and in health, in living and in dying. At its heart, Adventures in Human Being is a meditation on what it means to be human. Poetic, eloquent, and profoundly perceptive, this book will transform the way you view your body."--
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2013., Vintage Books Call No: SC 598.47 F818e Availability:1 of 1 At Your Library Summary Note: Gavin Francis spent fourteen months as a medical doctor 'wintering' in Halley Base, a profoundly isolated research station on the Caird Coast of Antarctica. Attracted by the prospect of solitude and silence -- the base is unreachable for ten months of the year -- it also a rare opportunity to explore the world of the Emperor penguin, the only species truly at home in the Antarctic. As the group of 64 base members narrows down to a core of 14, we move through the year -- from the months of constant sunshine to the three and half months of starlight, and explore the moods and manners of Antarctic living. Among the cold, ice and blankness of the landscape, the legends and myths of Shackleton, Scott, Wilson and Cherry-Garrard loom large, and Francis weaves a discursive and edifying train of thought from characters such as Emerson, Coleridge, Gandhi, Gilbert White, and Pliny, exploring the physical and mental hardship of living at temperatures of -50C, and the unexpected reassurance and comfort that the penguin community brings in this desolate yet awe-inspiring landscape.
