Customer Reviews

A Left Hand Turn Around the World: Chasing the Mystery and Meaning of All Things Southpaw

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This is a light and carefree look at the left handed world. It's a mixture of science (the brain's contribution - which now is known to happen much earlier than previously thought), culture (where to sit at a dining table), humor (as in left handed sword fighting), and a dose of I'm not sure just what to call it about stories such at one where a man had his left arm attached to his right shoulder (To move his thumb, his brain sends out signals to move his little finger. Question, is he left handed?).

Mr. Wolman is a leftie, he took off a year to research leftiness. He lives in Portland, Oregon, which is just about as far left wing as any city in the country, besides being on the left hand side of the map. -- Sorry, I couldn't help it.

An amusing book, potentially a very good gift for the right person, no I mean the left person, no that's not what I meant either.

My dad is notoriously hard to shop for but this wonderful book is perfect. I read it first myself and loved it even though I'm a righty. It made me feel smarter - I think most people have probably been curious about what makes some people left handed, particullarly if they have lefties in their family. Well, this book reveals a lot, but you'll have to read it to learn for yourself. Anyway, I'm giving it to my dad because he's a lefty and will appreciate it. Sure makes my gift-giving easier this year!

Being left handed and having been forced to write with my right hand since a child, I can sympathize with the author's experience as a left hander. His one year quest to learn more about this subject is very illuminating. I agree with many of the assertions and conclusions. For example, I was a fencer in College Varsity and I definitely agree with the fact that there is a distinct advantage in some sports for a left hander. I always thought the condition is based on genetics but I learned that it was not as simple as first appears. I recommend this book for all people to learn more about the complexity of life and to accept and celebrate our differences.

You're probably a left-hander if you think that driving a stick shift (in an American car, at least) is an invitation to disaster; if you've ever jangled elbows with the person on your left at a dinner party; or if you have a story about a grade school teacher who was just sure she could make you change your sinister ways. If so, then I have a book for you. (The rest of you oppressors can stop reading.)

In A Left-Hand Turn Around the World, fellow lefty David Wolman chases down "the mystery and meaning of all things Southpaw." I learned a good deal from reading this book, though some of it was useless (like chapters on how handwriting analysis and palmistry are crocks, which I knew already) and some way over my head (like the chapter on genetic shifts, which I tried desperately to understand but found confusing and counterintuitive). But there's plenty of other fascinating stuff here to chew on, and Wolman is a fine and engaging writer, with the quirky humor and keen eye for irony that I would expect from an enlightened lefty.

One thing he debunks right away, for example, is the popular misconception that people who can write with either hand are ambidextrous. This is not ambidexterity, which requires an equal facility with either hand for all handed tasks (eating, writing, drawing, throwing, sweeping, cutting, etc.). True ambidexterity is actually extremely rare. (p. 15) In contrast, many people evince some kind of "mixed-handedness."

What Wolman says about mixed-handedness, in fact, may turn out to be the greatest revelation of the book. It may well be that we've been asking the wrong question about handedness all along, supposing a dichotomous lefty-righty split when in fact the real question is mixed-handedness versus strong-handedness. (p 117) People who demonstrate a consistent, across-the-board preference for one hand or the other are considered strong-handed, and may share certain traits and abilities, while mixed-handed people are wired differently and have other natural advantages and disadvantages.

I've already recommended this book to a couple of cool Southpaw friends. Other people probably won't understand our compulsion to read it, and the numerous "that's just like me!" moments we'll experience from its pages. They are so accustomed to ruling their righteous world that they never have to stop to think about how the other ten percent live. But hey, I'm not mad. Some of my best friends are right-handed. Just tell them to please, please, stop designing the cars I have to drive.

A longer version of this review was posted on February 6, 2006 at The Review Revolution (janariess.typepad.com).

This is a great book. As a (mostly) right-handed person, I wasn't too sure at first, but it was truly a delight. I learned a lot about the brain and a mysterious little facet of human behavior that people usually overlook. Wolman's side-excursions into the worlds of palmistry, graphology, and lefty golf are a welcome -- and funny -- change of pace from the science material, and his portrait of the guy with the hand transplant is terrific. Think of Kurlansky with a sense of humor, and Sobel with a sense of adventure. A good read for left-handers, of course, and anyone who's curious about the world.

this is a must read for any left hander! It was very informative, and it was interesting to read just how unfairly left handers were treated thru the ages!

This is not a book of trivia. Instead, it is a serious attempt to glean what is known about left handedness and its implications, if any, for the human race. Wolman is adept at tackling a wide range of issues but I must confess that I read this in the midst of a more detailed analysis of the thought processes associated with left-handedness. I did not find the silver bullet here. This is a great book about as many things as this author knows about.

I will forward that there is one significant area where he did not venture--and I feel that the neglected area is in fact the most interesting. Since I am working on my own work on the same topic, I will leave it at that.