Overview

Bone is ubiquitous and versatile, and uniquely repairs itself without scarring. However, we rarely see bone in its living state?and even then, mostly in two-tone images that only hint at its marvels. After it serves and protects vertebrate lives, bone reveals itself in surprising ways, sometimes hundreds of millions of years later. In Bones, orthopedic surgeon Roy Meals explores and extols this amazing material that both supports and records vertebrate life. He demystifies the biological makeup of bones; how they grow, break, and heal; and how medical innovations?from the first X-rays to advanced surgical techniques?enhance our lives. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals also reveals the enduring presence of bone outside the body?as fossils, ossuaries, tools, musical instruments?and celebrates allusions to bone in history, religion, and idiom. Approachable and entertaining, Bones richly illuminates our bodies' essential framework.

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9781324005322

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Reviews

An engaging journey for readers that explores and explains the mysteries and wonders of the skeleton, illustrating the importance of bone in health and history in a wonderful storytelling style. Most informative and a real joy to read.--Vernon Tolo, MD, former president, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Roy A. Meals has done for bone what Mark Kurlansky did for salt: he saw the possibilities in something that everyone takes for granted and made it into a star. This is a paean to bone, a scientific primer as well as a cultural history, composed by a master of his subject.--Ross D. E. MacPhee, curator, American Museum of Natural History, and author of End of the Megafauna

[A] revealing, sometimes riveting and finely illustrated investigation, ranging from the dinosaurs to today.--Andrew Robinson Nature Roy A. Meals is in love with bone, insofar as a man can be infatuated with calcified connective tissue. His new book is a valentine to what Dr. Meals calls 'the world's best building material, ' taking us on a lively, lucid and entertaining tour of bone in health and disease, and its strange afterlife in human culture.--John J. Ross Wall Street Journal An engaging journey for readers that explores and explains the mysteries and wonders of the skeleton, illustrating the importance of bone in health and history in a wonderful storytelling style. Most informative and a real joy to read.--Vernon Tolo, MD, former president, American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons Roy A. Meals has done for bone what Mark Kurlansky did for salt: he saw the possibilities in something that everyone takes for granted and made it into a star. This is a paean to bone, a scientific primer as well as a cultural history, composed by a master of his subject.--Ross D. E. MacPhee, curator, American Museum of Natural History, and author of End of the Megafauna Wide-ranging, deeply researched, and entertaining, Bones is a highly accessible examination of a complex topic. Roy A. Meals has a real knack for explaining complicated phenomena like bone growth, fractures, and healing in an imaginative, jargon-free manner. A must-read for anyone with a backbone.--Bill Schutt, author of Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History

Author Information

Roy A. Meals, MD, is a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at UCLA and the author of Bones: Inside and Out, a Barnes & Noble Best Science Book of 2020. The author of several medical books, he has practiced, researched, and taught hand surgery for forty years. He lives in Los Angeles, California.

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