Nonfiction Author Michael Sims Reading

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When Viking and Penguin UK published the hardback of ADAM'S NAVEL in July 2003, it received the lead review (by Irish novelist John Banville) in the New York Times Book Review. "Sims has the breadth.," wrote Banville, "of Montaigne or Robert Burton or Sir Thomas Browne, the whimsical omnivorousness of the eighteenth-century essayists, and he is as bigheartedly inclusive as Samuel Johnson.. This is an entertaining, witty, and erudite jackdaw's nest of a book. Sims seems not only to have read everything, the trivial as well as the lofty, but to have remembered all of it. The range of reference is dizzying."

Viking sent Sims on cross-country book tour, during which he was interviewed for radio, television, newspapers, and magazines in New York City, San Francisco, Denver, Cincinnati, Seattle, Minneapolis, Nashville, and other cities. He has also been interviewed by British stations and publications.

ADAM'S NAVEL was later selected as a New York Times Notable Book and a Library Journal Best Science Book of the Year. It was chosen by the Discovery Channel Book Club and the Quality Paperback Book Club. ADAM'S NAVEL was recommended by magazines ranging from Discover and Seed: The Magazine of Science and Culture to Self and Entertainment Weekly, and is currently recommended reading in teen web sites, spirituality newsletters, science writing courses, and many other places. Foreign translation rights have been sold in numerous countries, including China.

Sims is the author of DARWIN'S ORCHESTRA (Henry Holt 1997), about which Martin Gardner wrote, "Sims's range is awesome." His articles and reviews have appeared in publications ranging from American Archaeology and Creative Loafing to Medical Anthropology Quarterly and the Honolulu Times, from England's New Statesman to the Australian Financial Review.

Sims is currently writing a new book for Viking and editing and annotating a volume of early twentieth-century satirical poetry for Penguin Classics. He is also the only man and the only American to be featured in an ongoing BBC Radio 4 documentary series about the natural and cultural history of women's bodies.

This summer Sims moved to Greensburg, shortly after marrying Laura Sloan Patterson, who was recently hired as Assistant Professor of English at Seton Hill University and who coordinates the undergraduate writing programs there. You may learn more about the author or email him via his website, www.michaelsimsbooks.com.

Some sample comments from reviews of ADAM'S NAVEL:

"A quite remarkable compendium of fact, fantasy, myth and personal musings on the topic of the human body." --WASHINGTON POST BOOK WORLD

"A lighthearted exploration . drawing on myth, religion, art, pop culture, history, biology, and any other -ology that suits the purpose here: to delight, astound, and inform.. Great fun." --KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)

"Everybody bare your body now! The human body has been one of the favorite subjects of study since time immemorial and yet there are a number of amazing facts about it that ordinary people have no clue about.. Adam's Navel reveals some of the most extraordinary facts about our bodies." --THE TIMES OF INDIA

"Deeply fascinating." --THE INDEPENDENT (England)

"Be warned: reading Michael Sims' Adam's Navel is an interactive experience. Sims' lavish, accomplished prose infuses you with a delicious awareness of your own physicality.." --MSNBC

"A witty and informative top-to-bottom tour of the human anatomy..sly and sardonic." --ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY

"The finest chapters are simultaneously wise, funny, and fascinating, and provide the perfect environment in which Sims's drollery can flourish." --SUNDAY TIMES OF LONDON, magazine section

"Lively and enjoyable.. After reading Adam's Navel, you could believe almost anything." --DAILY MIRROR (London)

"A brilliant idea, executed with panache.." -THE GOOD BOOK GUIDE

"A lively and wide-ranging excursion." --BOOKLIST

"Sims reveals his brain to be one of nature's many miracles." --THE HERALD SUN

"Our bodies are typically overworked, underworked, or just neglected. But for Michael Sims the body is a site of fascination, to which he applies delicious prose." --THE AUSTRALIAN

"A rolicking 'fantastic voyage' over the surface of the body." --PUBLISHERS WEEKLY