Winner - Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, 2008

“A delightful introduction to our skeletal structure, viscera and other vital parts - and evidence that learning the secrets of the human body need not unhinge you. ...[Shubin] is a warm and disarming guide....Future researchers, aware that the ingredients of our evolutionary precursors are part of the human recipe, may well find new ways to prevent the wear and tear on our fish-begotten bodies. And who knows? Maybe one or two of them will have had their first taste of the marvels of human evolution in Neil Shubin’s anatomy class.” (Los Angeles Times)

“The antievolution crowd is always asking where the missing links in the descent of man are. Well, paleontologist Shubin actually discovered one....A crackerjack comparative anatomist, he uses his find to launch a voyage of discovery about the evolutionary evidence we can readily see at hand....Shubin relays all this exciting evidence and reasoning so clearly that no general-interest library should be without this book.” (Booklist, starred review)

“With infectious enthusiasm, unfailing clarity, and laugh-out-loud humor, Neil Shubin has created a book on paleontology, genetics, genomics, and anatomy that is almost impossible to put down. In telling the story of why we are who we are, Shubin does more than show us our inner fish; he awakens and excites the inner scientist in us all.” (Pauline Chen, author of Final Exam)