The Midtown Scholar Bookstore is pleased to welcome Dr. Roy Meals (BONES: INSIDE AND OUT) and Dr. Bill Schutt (CANNIBALISM: A PERFECTLY NATURAL HISTORY) for a live-stream discussion on the 500-million-year history of bone and Meals’s new work, BONES: INSIDE OUT AND OUT.
A lively, illustrated exploration of the 500-million-year history of bone, a touchstone for understanding vertebrate life and human culture.
Human bone is versatile and entirely unique: it repairs itself without scarring, it’s lightweight but responds to stresses, and it’s durable enough to survive for millennia. In Bones, orthopedic surgeon Roy A. Meals explores and extols this amazing material that both supports and records vertebrate life.Inside the body, bone proves itself the world’s best building material. Meals examines the biological makeup of bones; demystifies how they grow, break, and heal; and compares the particulars of human bone to variations throughout the animal kingdom. In engaging and clear prose, he debunks familiar myths―humans don’t have exactly 206 bones―and illustrates common bone diseases, like osteoporosis and arthritis, and their treatments.
Along the way, he highlights the medical innovations―from the first X-rays to advanced operative techniques―that enhance our lives and introduces the giants of orthopedic surgery who developed them.After it has supported vertebrate life, bone reveals itself in surprising ways―sometimes hundreds of millions of years later. With enthusiasm and humor, Meals investigates the diverse roles bone has played in human culture throughout history. He highlights allusions to bone in religion and literature, from Adam’s rib to Hamlet’s skull, and uncovers its enduring presence as fossils, technological tools, and musical instruments ranging from the Tibetan thighbone kangling horn to everyday drumsticks. From the dawn of civilization through to the present day, humankind has repurposed bone to serve and protect, and even to teach, amuse, and inspire.
About the Authors:
Roy A. Meals, MD is a clinical professor of orthopedic surgery at UCLA. The author of several medical books, he has practiced, researched, and taught hand surgery for forty years. He has served as president of the American Society for Surgery of the Hand and has also been on the editorial board of the Journal of Hand Surgery for most of his career. He lives in Los Angeles, California.
Bill Schutt is a professor of biology at LIU Post and a research associate at the American Museum of Natural History. His first book, Dark Banquet: Blood and the Curious Lives of Blood-Feeding Creatures, was selected as a Best Book of 2008 by Library Journal and Amazon and was chosen for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers program. Born in New York City and raised on Long Island by parents who encouraged his love for turning over stones and peering under logs, Schutt quickly grew a passion for the natural world, with its enormous wonders and its increasing vulnerability. He received his PhD in zoology from Cornell and has published over two dozen peer-reviewed articles on topics ranging from terrestrial locomotion in vampire bats to the precarious, arboreal copulatory behavior of a marsupial mouse. His research has been featured in Natural History magazine as well as the New York Times, Newsday, the Economist, and Discover magazine. He has served on the board of directors of the North American Society for Bat Research for the past eight years. Schutt lives on the East End of Long Island with his wife and son. He is currently working on a new book on the natural history of the heart.
