Guide to the Human Body: A photographic journey through the human body

Atlas-sized, this volume shows us all our bits in loving detail and glowing colour. Just about every known graphic technique is employed to do this and as well as good basic information-gobbets, DK style, we get the odd fascinating fact as well. So all down a thermograph’s left arm we can read that ‘A newborn baby has about 350 bones, but because some fuse together as the baby grows, adults have 206 bones’.

Most fascinating, predictably, are the electron photomicrographs – rods in the retina, tastebuds on the tongue, for instance, and the timed double spread of the intestinal tract (from Monday lunch to Tuesday suppertime) is particularly good value. Did you know the inside of the larger intestine is carpeted (sic) with a layer of bacteria 2cm thick? This is a highly entertaining wet-day book.