Molluscs may not seem life's most exciting phylum. But Helen Scales, a marine biologist-turned-science writer, makes an impassioned and convincing case otherwise. Molluscs include just about everything with a shell, such as snails and mussels, and a few familiar things without, such as slugs and squid. Ms Scales finds the magic in each. In "Spirals in Time" she explores the complex sexual contortions of snails, describes the mathematical precision of a nautilus's shell and devotes a whole chapter to sea silk, strands secreted by the pen shell Pinna nobilis and woven into cloth of extraordinary delicateness. Ms Scales's book charts not only how molluscs have evolved, but also the roles they have played as human societies evolved. From the Scythians of ancient Iran to disparate North American tribes, many cultures buried their dead with shell riches. The people of Nauru pass down a creation myth with shells in a starring role. Consider Botticelli's "The Birth of Venus", with the goddess rising out of a scallop shell: molluscs have been the symbols of birth, sex and death. And wealth, too-billions of cowrie shells crossed oceans as the currency of much of the slave trade.
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