Gut

Here’s a good litmus test for whether or not you will enjoy Giulia’s book: watch her TED talk, “The surprisingly charming science of your gut”. The style of her presentation is pretty much what you can expect from the book. If you enjoy her talk, you’ll love the book.

Giulia is fascinated by our gut, and all the awkward…err…outputs it can produce. She explains how our digestive system works, and why it’s so important to understand what it’s doing. And she does it all with an infectious level of enthusiasm and plenty of laughter. The illustrations, created by her sister, are light and fun, as are her explanations. It’s easy to see how a book about a critical system of the human body could get very dry, very quick. But Giulia never takes herself too seriously, instead choosing to write in a style that is very friendly and easy to digest (no pun intended).

She’s also very practical. As she discusses each function of the gut and what causes things like constipation or bad breathe, she also spends time bringing those ideas back down to actionable advice: if this is something you battle with, here are the things you should try.

At times I wouldn’t have minded a little more technical detail, but that’s nitpicking. She never fails to present the concepts themselves in understandable form—and at the end up of the day, that’s more important than the little trivia bits that surround it.