I was a big fan of Schutt's book [book:Cannibalism: A Perfectly Natural History|28110850] and also have a particular interest in the heart after my thirty-seven year old (healthy until it happened) cousin ended up having a heart transplant that was successful going on a year and a half. So I was curious what Schutt would add and share about his extensively researched subject.

This book is circuitous storytelling with the bit of humor that I can appreciate in other nonfiction writers like Mary Roach. He doesn't limit his subject to the heart of a human but instead talks about the animal kingdom and many intersecting elements like blood and medical history. I was fascinated by the stories of Baby Fae who was born a year after me who had had a primate heart transplanted in the hopes that a xenotransplant might help the tiniest of patients but what they learned was a bit about the blood types of primates as well as functionality with the doctor concluding if the blood type had been the same, Baby Fae might still be alive. But Schutt then parlays that story into other hearts that we can learn from in terms of growth and/or regeneration like snakes who are constrictors or pigs or newts. And that's just one offshoot that proved fascinating.

Animals who are hibernators have better heart health. The future of organ transplantation is likely growing your own set of extra organs from stem cells. Leeches used to be used in vaginas to make it appear that a woman was a virgin when she might not have been. If you're going outside to shovel snow, you shouldn't eat a big meal ahead of time and should be extra careful if you're a smoker or if you've just had alcohol, too many heart attacks happen during this overexertion because of vasoconstriction. And the list of cool factoids goes on and on.

It's got an organization that isn't apparent to me but does work in highlighting in essay-like format with nifty quotes from past and present about things like how for many years the heart was considered the center of the body. Always a fun ride with Schutt's choice of research and writing. I'm glad I got an advanced copy to read via Netgalley!

One of my undergraduate degrees is in Biology/Human Anatomy and Physiology and as a requirement of the bachelor’s degree, I had to take Comparative Anatomy.

At the time, I didn’t really enjoy the course but as I read more and more books on various Human Anatomy and Physiology subjects, the more I appreciated what I had learned in the course.

Pump: A Natural History of the Heart takes the reader through the anatomy and some physiology of the heart. Not just human, but all critters -- vertebrate and invertebrate -- because no matter what kind of critter you are, you need to get sustenance to your various cells and organelles. To do this, all your cells need to either directly access the substances or have a circulatory system of some kind to get stuff to your individual cells.

I was particularly taken with the story of the beaching of a blue whale and the fascinating efforts of scientists to harvest the heart, which was huge! There is an illustration of the author sitting next to the displayed heart and he is dwarfed by its size. Since I mentioned the illustration, the book is full of great pencil illustrations by Patricia J Wynne. These drawings really helped me understand the points that Dr Schutt was making (and brought me back to my undergrad days). The rest of the book is just as enchanting.

This isn’t to say that this book is a hard read. Not at all. Dr Schutt takes the complex subject of showing the reader how various species pump or diffuse blood and nutrients throughout the body culminating on how the human heart pumps blood as well as the various instruments that doctors use to monitor and keep the human heart healthy. And he does all these heavy discussions with a liberal dose of humor. (As a side note, I wish I had taken biology courses with Dr Schutt as just about all my teachers in college were dour.)

I would recommend this book to anyone who is interested in the subject, even those, like myself who have had advanced schooling. Dr Schutt is a really gifted writer who took a complex subject and made it fun to read and when you add the illustrations, it made it a joy to read and I suspect, you’ll enjoy it too.