A Very Short Introduction...to many things

Now you may think I'm going to write about everything in this post when I'm actually going to talk about books- from the A Very Short Introduction library from OUP(Oxford University Press).These books cover a large range of subjects from Art to Science,now reaching a very impressive number.I picked two numbers over a month ago when I spotted them at my local bookstore:Hormones by Martin Luck ( 394 ) and The Eye by Michael F. Land (388). What really made me curious about them besides
the actual subject was the fact that they looked pretty small for a lot of information-I had seen pictures of them on the Internet but did not expect them to be that size(174x111mm).I really liked that the writing is very small and that they fit perfectly in any of my bags so I can literally take them everywhere with me,which, believe me,is a big plus.

When they say it is a very short introduction,they mean it.These are not overly hard to understand in therms of content books yet I do have to say that I really enjoyed they way things were explained and the graphs along with pictures.If you would want to have a more in depth look in the subjects covered then this is a very good point from where to start with your reading and then move on to speciality books-both of these titles have a Further Reading section at the end which is really helpful if you want to go that way.Really interesting facts I learned from reading this,many "boxes" and side-notes sparked my interest:chemical formulas and graphs and tables.

Hormones is the one that captured most of my interest,I have to be honest,but that is just a matter of preference(I am still waiting for Genes to arrive).I liked how chapters began with a general case and then went into possible explanations for each,covering a little of the clinical related stuff and then even a little chemistry(like I mentioned ,the chemical formulas).

The Eye combined a little anatomy with evolution,in the first part of the book.

A great diversity:from biology to physics and medicine,I could find quite a few titles that I would like to read next(one of them not yet out and I'm getting really impatient).I am looking for Genes(by Jonathan Slack),The Brain(by Michael O'Shea) ,Cancer(by Nicholas James) and Viruses(by Dorothy H. Crawford) which could be the start of my very own collection.

I would really encourage people to read more science related articles and books on the daily basis and these,I think,would make a good start for anybody.

Cristina