The Natural Superiority of the Left-Hander

by James Tertius de Kay

Book Overview

"One person in ten is a left-hander. And every last one of them thinks he's sort of special. Which is probably true . . ."
Over 400,000 copies in print

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871313073
• ISBN13: 9780871313072
• Release Date: September 1992
• Publisher: M. Evans and Company
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.63 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.3" x 7.5" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Yes, Left is Right!

Lefties Unite! This is a fun book to read out loud at a party!

A collection of serious and humorous thoughts on handedness that make you think about it

There are many situations in nature where direction of handedness is favored over another. Biological structures are generally all oriented in the same direction, there is a parity violation in subatomic physics and humans are decidedly in favor of the left hand. Many arguments have been put forward to explain each of these preferences, yet nothing yet has proven convincing. The purpose of this book is to argue in favor of the left hander. While most tools and utensils come in the right-handed form only, there are many areas where the left handed person seems to have an advantage. Baseball and tennis are two of them; many of the greatest stars were left handed. An amateur boxer that I once knew said he had an extremely difficult time when going up against left-handers. He would struggle against those of lesser talent, simply because they were left-handed. Other areas are cited in this book, some of which are scientific and others which are given with tongue firmly planted in cheek. The serious parts make you wonder, the humorous parts make you smile. Given the overwhelming preference society has for the right-handed person, to remain left-handed in conflict with this preference must certainly mean that those that stay left are strongly drawn that way. I enjoyed this book; it presents the principles of handedness in ways that I had not thought of before.

My son is leftie who LOVES this book

My son is 10 and he LOVES this book!! He quotes it all the time and actually is now insistant that he is superior to all of us right handers.. I love that it makes him feel special!

My bible growing up...

As a lefty child, this book was my bible. I searched high and low for a copy last year after realizing as a grow-up that it was still a book I could enjoy. It does a great job of de-mystifying dominant-handedness while dispensing some interesting biological facts about it (how it's a recessive gene, for example.) It's filled with humorous drawings and fun factoids (did you know that Gerald Ford writes left-handed sitting down, and right-handed standing up?) that anyone -- not just a lefty -- will appreciate. As an added bonus, it succeeds in its goal to provide a good source of self-esteem for lefties who feel left-out.