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How to Fly

Taking Wing with Birds, Bats, Insects and Humans

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How to Fly

By: Simon Barnes
Narrated by: Simon Barnes
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Bloomsbury presents How to Fly: Taking Wing with Birds, Bats, Insects and humans, written and read by Simon Barnes.

A unique and all-encompassing exploration of the wonders of flight and the way different species have evolved different solutions to the problem of defying gravity – including humans.

Flight fascinates us. We thrill to birds, we adore butterflies, we’re baffled by bats and we can hardly believe in pterodactyls. We worship angels and we compare love, religious ecstasy and artistic achievement to flight. We love the idea of flight so much we invented machines that at last allowed us to fly. Many died to make human flight possible.

In How to Fly, bestselling writer Simon Barnes brings together all aspects of aerial life – evolution, technology, mythology, religion, nature and imagination – in a celebration of the wonders of flight. Barnes looks at the physics of flying and how flight has evolved quite separately four times over (or five, if we count humans). He examines how these creatures do it: from the nocturnal agility of bats and the bees that beat their wings 230 times per second, to the extinct reptile quetzalcoatlus with its 10-metre wingspan and the Arctic terns that travel 75,000km every year. He also explores how the great poets, mystics, saints, musicians and athletes have all, in their different ways, succeeded in getting high and getting us high.

Sweeping in scope and packed with fresh insights, How to Fly is a book that sets free the eagle within us all.

PRAISE FOR SIMON BARNES:
'Barnes makes you look and listen with new eyes and ears' STEPHEN FRY
'Quite simply, a writer in a class of his own' CLARE BALDING
'Barnes describes the wonders of nature with infectious enthusiasm' GUARDIAN
'Barnes is a passionate writer on wildlife' DAILY MAIL©2026 Simon Barnes (P)2026 Bloomsbury Publishing PLC Animals Biological Sciences Evolution Evolution & Genetics Outdoors & Nature Science
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Critic reviews

Barnes has done serious homework on the physics of flight, but he has carefully jumbled together all his subjects across 148 micro-chapters, none of which is longer than five pages. The rainbow spectrum is dizzying... it works perfectly to emphasise how completely fixated with air travel we are (Mark Cocker)
All stars
Most relevant
The author weaves an interesting summary of the biological and technological evolution of flight with witty personal memoir.

Witty and informative

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