Stephen Biesty's Incredible Body

Stephen Biesty’s own body gets the treatment he has used so successfully, in a number of other books, on liners, locomotives, castles and others: exploding, sectioning and dissecting to show us how it fits together and works. One of the joys of his approach is its complexity and intricacy; the magic of the mechanism. But it seems less appropriate here, applied to a living organism, than it does applied to an actual machine or a building. The mechanical analogy pervades the book. For instance, there are teams of tiny men working away in the muscles and the organs to make sure the body runs smoothly. This produces extremely complicated illustrations, which resemble the incredible contraptions of a Jules Verne imagination. This is part of the Biesty fascination. But do not expect to find a clear approach to the way the human body operates. To get the best out of the book, you need to know a lot before you start, and be at least 11 years old. Then you can pore over the pages and enjoy both the big picture and the diverting detail without worrying too much about getting the pieces back in the right places.