What's Gotten Into You

August 1, 2022

For the last two decades, Levitt has been writing and producing award-winning science and history documentaries for the National Geographic, Discover, Science, and History channels, but this documentary effort is truly ambitious. He investigates the various chemical elements that make up the human body, then tracks them all the way back to the big bang. With a 50,000-copy first printing.

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Starred review from November 7, 2022
Documentarian Levitt sheds light on the tiniest bits of what humans are made of in his stellar debut. “Carl Sagan once famously said we are made of star stuff,” Levitt writes in his introduction. “This is the improbable story of how it happened.” Levitt covers the big bang, which led to the creation of “every particle in your body”; describes how elements are made within stars; outlines how the water that runs “through our veins” made its way to Earth (“humongous snowy dirt balls” are one theory, asteroids another); explains the nature of DNA; and extrapolates on how the food one eats “create a living person.” Along the way, Levitt offers snapshot biographies of scientists: astronomer Cecilia Payne, for example, “transformed our view of how stars work,” and photosynthesis was discovered in 1779 by “a well-coiffed forty-nine-year-old Dutch physician and natural philosopher named Jan Ingenhousz.” The author claims that “to retrace the journeys of our atoms is to appreciate the world anew,” and his winning mix of astronomy, physics, biology, and chemistry will help readers do just that. This is marvelous. Agent: Suzanne Gluck, WME.

December 1, 2022
How the elements of the human body came to be. In his debut book, writer and documentarian Levitt hits the ground running with news that a 150-pound human body contains 60 elements, including "enough carbon to make 25 pounds of charcoal, enough salt to fill a saltshaker, enough chlorine to disinfect several backyard swimming pools, and enough iron to make a three-inch nail." On the open market, our body chemicals would bring about $2,000. To explain how they assembled into a human requires an explanation of life itself, which demands understanding the history of our planet. Many authors who write about our elemental makeup deliver this in an introductory chapter, but Levitt offers an entertaining history of the entire universe, paying most attention to humans in the introduction and final chapters. He keeps matters simple enough that science buffs will be satisfied and average readers will learn a great deal. The immense heat caused by the Big Bang permitted almost nothing to exist except the simplest elements, hydrogen and helium. After at least 100 million years of expansion and cooling, the two condensed into stars whose heat and pressure squeezed them into heavier elements--and even heavier ones when aging stars exploded. After more billions of years, galaxies and planetary systems formed, including the Earth 4.5 billion years ago. Scientists have no idea how life began, but Levitt's page-turning account emphasizes how quickly it happened: within a few hundred million years. Life here and on other planets may be inevitable. Earthly life was bacterial for most of its existence. Plants came later, and they still rule the world, making up 80% of its biomass. Animals brought up the rear, eventually evolving into humans. The author notes that the process of completing this book "has been a continual source of wonder, stupefaction, exhilaration, and gratitude." Readers will share those feelings. Lively, illuminating popular science.

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January 1, 2023
What are we actually made of? And where did it come from?"" These two questions propel Levitt's exploration in an epic atomic odyssey, beginning with the Big Bang 13.8-billion years ago, highlighted by the first appearance of life on earth 3.8-billion years ago, and resulting in the self-sustaining you. The information he provides is drawn from astrophysics, evolutionary and molecular biology, botany, chemistry, geology, and physiology and is presented in an easily comprehensible form. The numbers Levitt puts forward are often whopping. The average human body is comprised of about 7-octillion atoms, the majority of them hydrogen. He pays sharp attention to the history of science and how cognitive biases routinely sabotaged scientific discoveries. Chapters on plant life and photosynthesis are particularly captivating. Odd facts spice up the discussion, such as our body's production of approximately six tablespoons of hydrochloric acid daily to support the digestion of food. From stars to Homo sapiens, this book tackles sprawling subject matter--the birth and expansion of the universe, the origin of life, and how humans came to be what we are.

COPYRIGHT(2023) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.