Your inner fish: a journey into the 3.5-billion-year history of the human body

In this little book, Neil Shubin provides an overview of a number of perspectives by which one can trace the evolutionary history of the human body from the earliest single-cell (despite the title) organism. The author takes us on a somewhat breathless romp through evolutionary anatomy and physiology in what amounts, often, to a textbook update. He opens Your Inner Fish with an excellent description of the frustrations, triumphs, luck and hard work of paleontological field exploration. In the chapters that follow he combines humor and expertise in detailing the evolutionary paths to human appendages, the parallels between anatomy and genetics, between physiology and biochemistry. Along the way he finds time to discuss the evolutionary implications of such diverse topics as hiccups and hernias.