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A Heavy Reckoning: War, Medicine and Survival in Afghanistan and Beyond by E. R. Mayhew
Category: History | Series: Wellcome Ser.
What happens when you reach the threshold of life and death - and come back? As long as humans have lived together on the planet, there have been wars, and injured soldiers and civilians. But today, as we engage in wars across the globe with increasingly sophisticated technology, we are able to bring pe ...Show more
Adventures in Human Being by Gavin Francis
Category: Science | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Sunday Times bestsellerWe have a lifetime's association with our bodies, but for many of us they remain uncharted territory. In Adventures in Human Being, Gavin Francis leads the reader on a journey through health and illness, offering insights on everything from the ribbed surface of the brain to the s ...Show more
Being Mortal - Illness, Medicine and What Matters in the End by Atul Gawande
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: Wellcome Collection Ser.
For most of human history, death was a common, ever-present possibility. It didn't matter whether you were five or fifty - every day was a roll of the dice. But now, as medical advances push the boundaries of survival further each year, we have become increasingly detached from the reality of being mort ...Show more
Beneath the Skin - Great Writers on the Body by Ned Beauman; Naomi Alderman; Thomas Lynch (Introduction by); Philip Kerr; A. L. Kennedy
Category: Politics | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Our bodies all have stories to tell - and who better to tell them than fifteen of the world's finest writers? Buried beneath layers of flesh, our hearts pump, our lungs inflate, our kidneys filter. These organs, and others, are essential to our survival but remain largely unknown to us. In Beneath the S ...Show more
Book of Human Emotions by Tiffany Watt Smith
Category: Personal Development | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Recent research suggests there are only six basic emotions. But if this makes you feel uneasy, suspicious and maybe even a little bereft, The Book of Human Emotions is for you. From anger to wanderlust, each entertaining and informative alphabetical entry reveals the surprising connections and fascinati ...Show more
Chasing the Sun: How the Science ... by Linda Geddes
Category: Science | Series: Wellcome Ser.
The full story of how our relationship with the sun shapes our health, productivity and moodOur ancestors constructed vast monuments like Stonehenge and Pyramids of Egypt and Central America to keep track of the sun and celebrate the annual cycle of death and rebirth. The returning sun heralds new begin ...Show more
In Therapy: The Unfolding Story by Susie Orbach
Category: Health and Wellbeing | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Worldwide, an increasingly diverse and growing number of people are seeking therapy. We go to address past traumas, to break patterns of behaviour, to confront eating disorders or addiction, to talk about relationships, or simply because we want to find out more about ourselves. Susie Orbach has been a ...Show more
Living with Buildings - Health and Architecture by Iain Sinclair
Category: Home and Garden | Series: Wellcome Ser.
'A remarkable book; surprisingly gripping and often very moving ... stories weave and unweave over the book's course, patterning thought into a complex built environment, at once disorientating and illuminating.' Robert MacfarlaneWe shape ourselves, and are shaped in return, by the walls that contain us ...Show more
Medieval Bodies: Life, Death and Art in the Middle Ages by Jack Hartnell
Category: Art and Design | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Dripping with blood and gold, fetishized and tortured, gateway to earthly delights and point of contact with the divine, forcibly divided and powerful even beyond death, there was no territory more contested than the body in the medieval world. In Medieval Bodies, art historian Jack Hartnell uncovers th ...Show more
Schadenfreude - The Joy of Another's Misfortune by Tiffany Watt Smith
Category: Humour | Series: Wellcome Ser.
An entertaining and insightful exploration of schadenfreude: the deliciously dark and complex joy we've all felt, from time to time, at news of others' misfortunes. You might feel schadenfreude when... the boss calls himself "Head of Pubic Services" on an important letter. a cool guy swings back on ...Show more
Sex by Numbers: The Statistics of Sexual Behaviour by David Spiegelhalter
Category: Culture | Series: Wellcome Ser.
Whatever society we live in, and however open-minded we like to think we are, when it comes to our sex lives we all like to keep a few secrets. But this makes the jobs of sexologists - professionals who study sexual behaviour - pretty difficult. Luckily, David Spiegelhalter, Professor of Risk at Cambrid ...Show more
Shapeshifters: On Medicine & Human Change by Gavin Francis
Category: Science | Series: Wellcome Ser.
To be alive is to be in perpetual change: growing, healing, learning, aging. In Shapeshifters, award-winning writer and doctor Gavin Francis considers the transformations in mind and body that continue across the arc of human life. Some of these changes we have little choice about. We can't avoid pubert ...Show more