Skeleton Keys: The Secret Life of Bone

by Brian Switek

Book Overview

"A provocative and entertaining magical mineral tour through the life and afterlife of bone." -- Wall Street Journal Our bones have many stories to tell, if you know how to listen. Bone is a marvel, an adaptable and resilient building material developed over more than four hundred million years of evolutionary history. It gives your body its shape and the ability to move. It grows and changes with you, an undeniable document of who you are and how...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0399184902
• ISBN13: 9780399184901
• Release Date: March 2019
• Publisher: Riverhead Books
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 1.05 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 5.7" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

An absolutely charming novel with an interesting look at evolution

Riley Black (previously known as the author of this book) does something not all non-fiction writers can do. They write in a way that informs the reader while also remaining light-hearted and humerus (see what I did there ;). They take us through the entire process of evolution making the book vastly informative. While doing so Black explores different museums across the world admiring bones and telling their stories, as Black is an archeologist. I throughly enjoyed looking at human history through the lens of archeology. This was an important novel for me, as it highlights the importance of life, but also establishing that after death, we ALL become simply bone. The novel brings light to different controversies within the science community regarding gender as well as race and ethnicity. I appreciated how they were able to display an array of perspectives on multiple different controversies.