30-Second Anatomy

by Gabrielle M. Finn

30-Second Anatomy gets straight to the heart of the matter: how your body operates. Whether you are a student of medicine or biology, an artist, an athlete, or simply dying to know what your physician means when he mentions your plexus or your humerus, this is the quickest route to get under your own skin. Or, indeed, to understand exactly how your own skin works. Dissecting the detail of everything from your bones to your brain into 30-Second summaries, using no more than two pages, 300 words, and one picture, this is the hip way to understand the basic structures and systems that are you. Illustrated with gory graphics and supported by biographies of medical pioneers, time lines, and glossaries, it's the book of body parts that would have kept Burke and Hare in at nights.

Genres: Science, Nonfiction, Medicine, Reference, Biology, Medical, Health

160 pages, Paperback

First published July 1, 2012

Reviews

[Annabelle · Rating 3 out of 5]

Overview
- Rating: 3.0/5.0 stars
- Summary: Informative & great for those struggling with concentration.
- Trigger warning(s): It's like a textbook. It has anatomical pictures that some may find disturbing.

The Good
- Informative and educational
- Small and straight to the point segments
- Helpful pictures

The Bad
- A bit boring at times
- Sometimes hard to understand

Extended Review
I decided to read this book because I was struggling with concentration and I like science. It was perfect when it comes to accommodating my difficulties with concentration. It has short segments including a "3-second incision", "3-minute dissection", and "the 30-second anatomy". This lets the reader choose how in-depth they want to go which I found incredibly helpful. Although the way the book was divided and assembled was helpful, I still found some stuff hard to follow. The book has things like glossaries to try and help, but I still found some of the stuff hard to comprehend. On another note, it was sort of boring at times. However, this book is pretty much a textbook so being boring is kind of expected.

[Jacey Gregg]

I think this book was very informational and interesting. I really enjoyed reading it. I think that it could've had more details, but as far as summarizing the vast areas of the body I think they covered the most important points. I really enjoyed reading this and even learned some new things. I really liked the analogies they used to relate joints and muscles and tendon and how they meet and connect together; it made it much easier to picture them and remember them. I also really like the idea that created the book, a quick 30-second memory refresher or quick teacher about the parts of the body is ingenious. I do wish there could’ve been a tad more detail, but I understand that it is supposed to be a quick read and contain minimal but important and valuable information. Overall I thoroughly enjoyed this book and definitely will be reading it again to stay sharp!

[Talie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Perfect for my ADD reading! Colorful and descriptive, but brief without losing any learning quality. I get bogged down in boring grayscale textbooks, even though I desperately want to learn more. This is the perfect solution.

[Alicia · Rating 3 out of 5]

A neat little book that is exactly what it means to be, a look at the 50 most important structures and systems of the body in 30-second-like bits. Each dual page is a picture that usually includes a cross section or two, plus where in the body the reader is and some basic vocabulary and on the left is the 30-second bit, a factoid, someone to know in relationship to the system or structure, and then a short blurb about its functioning or importance.

A cool little resources that you can pick up and put down as needed and just gives you an extra little insight if you're not in the medical field about how it all works.

[Hessaaj · Rating 4 out of 5]

The illustrations are all from Gray's Anatomy but the graphic design was pretty neat! It's a cool coffee table book to have, especially if you're interested in anatomy, but don't really need to know THAT much about it.

[William Schram · Rating 4 out of 5]

"30-Second Anatomy" combines both the form and the function of the human body into one thin volume. Gabrielle M Finn is the acting editor and contributes some text to the book.

The book explores seven major anatomical systems; skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular & respiratory, digestive, sensory & speech, endocrine & nervous, and reproductive. Each section has a glossary, explores the main structures, and profiles a historical figure. For example, the section on the Cardiovascular system profiles William Harvey. You might remember him as the person that presented the idea of modern blood circulation.

The book is not Gray's Anatomy. It is not exhaustive, but it doesn't need to be. It fulfills its purpose.

[Oleksandr Stefanovskyi · Rating 3 out of 5]

It was hard to read and hard to understand the information in the book. It looks like a cheat sheet for medical students but not a book. It contains dozens of medical terms (yeah, we have vocabulary before chapters) and it really hard to keep in mind and operate with new information full of terms.
The book looks useful but extremely hard to learn.

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lots of interesting learning going on as I read this aloud to my eldest son (13 years old).

[Philippe Aubrée · Rating 3 out of 5]

Une longue lithanie de muscles, nerfs et os. Rythmé comme le veut la collection, et schémas illustratifs.
Pour specialistes ou fans d'anatomie descriptive.

[Ana Ivan Karamazov · Rating 1 out of 5]

The book where I would have an illusion where I understood 90% of human anatomy.
The illustration sucks because of the background color.

[Rae · Rating 4 out of 5]

A great reference book. Manages to blend overview and going slightly in-depth very well

[Abel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bien, pero aunque es muy didáctico, es mucha info. Pensé que sería más generalizado, pero es super específico y gran parte de la info dudo que se me quede grabada por mucho tiempo. Pensado para alguien con conocimientos básicos de biología o que esté estudiando activamente el tema (que no es mi caso) aunque sea autodidacta

[Austin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I picked this book up from a Barnes & Noble as a way to brush up on my gross anatomy, and am very glad that I did. I now have a good part of the vocabulary and conceptual foundation to carry on conversations with physicians about our new ultrasound technology.

The book sources 30-second overviews of anatomy across the skeletal, muscular, cardiovascular, respiratory, digestive, sensory, speech, endocrine, nervous, and reproductive systems from a wide range of experts. Many of the illustrations are from the venerable Grey's Anatomy.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember for a brief week or two in my first semester of college, I was taken by the idea of studying Anatomy. I was utterly fascinated with the subject and convinced it wasn't just a whim of mine, I was going to go on to get a degree in the field of Anatomy But it was just that, a whim of mine. Despite that, I was intrigued while reading 30-Second Anatomy and learned a lot. But I haven't picked up any Anatomy related books since...

[Etienne · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bien fait, mais on reste à la base, comme c'est souvent le cas pour cette série (les... en 30 secondes), par contre j'ai trouvé que c'était encore plus fapprant pour celui-ci et pourtant je ne suis pas un espert en anatomie. Le livre demeure quand même bien fait, bien vulgarisé et apporte son lot de connaissances.

[Arthur Cravan · Rating 5 out of 5]

For what this book is, it's amazingly helpful. Five stars for being on point & beautifully presented. If I had any niggling complaint, it would actually be for the TINIEST bit more information, but I guess that's defeating the purpose!

[Craig · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent resource for anyone studying anatomy, nursing. Beautifully crafted product.
Great for the casual readers/coffee table

[Kyndall · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is great for anyone studying anatomy ! Very descriptive and great
Pictures

[Ellie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very interesting, a good short insight into anatomy.