The Incredible Unlikeliness of Being: Evolution and the Making of Us - Hardcover

Shortlisted for the Wellcome Prize
"Roberts's engagingly personal style connects you to your ancestors, to your own personal beginnings as a single cell and, in a most attractive way, to herself as an author of great charm. From your brain to your fingertips, you emerge from her book entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself"--Richard Dawkins

"A masterful account of why our bodies are the way they are ...Roberts skilfully and knowledgeably weaves embryology, genetics, anatomy, evolution and zoology to tell the incredible story of the human body ...It is in comparative anatomy that this book really shines ...Roberts's anatomical expertise is seductive ...This is a scientifically robust book, packed with up-to-date and historical research, and in no way trivial. But it is a long distance from ponderous, and Roberts's lightness of touch is joyous, and celebratory"--Adam Rutherford, The Observer

"Alice Roberts tells us about the most amazing story on the planet - the creation of the human animal. Nothing is more extraordinary and her guided tour of the human body takes us on a fascinating journey of self-discovery"--Desmond Morris

"From your brain to your fingertips, you emerge from her book entertained and with a deeper understanding of yourself" --Richard Dawkins

Alice Roberts takes you on the most incredible journey, revealing your path from a single cell to a complex embryo to a living, breathing, thinking person.

It's a story that connects us with our distant ancestors and an extraordinary, unlikely chain of events that shaped human development and left a mark on all of us.

Alice Roberts uses the latest research to uncover the evolutionary history hidden in all of us, from the secrets found only in our embryos and genes - including why as embroyos we have what look like gills - to those visible in your anatomy.

This is a tale of discovery, exploring why and how we have developed as we have. This is your story, told as never before.