A Left-Hand Turn Around the World--and a Chat with the Author
Shelf Awareness caught up with author David Wolman near the beginning of his counter-clockwise book tour, while he still had promotional pens to hand out--not strictly left-hand pens but guaranteed not to smudge. As a leftie and a journalist with a penchant for travel and science, he is well-equipped to deal with the question he posed: "If left-handed were a religion, where would Mecca be?" His search for answers about how left-handers might differ mentally, physically and spiritually from the right-handed majority resulted in A Left-Hand Turn Around the World (Da Capo Press, $23.95, 0306814153, November). Accessible and amusing, it has a sufficient amount of science to interest the technically-inclined but is lucid enough for everyone to grasp the rudimentary concepts.
He pursues one theory and then another about the development of handedness, as does the reader, sleuthing beside the author. Along the way, he clears up misconceptions, particularly the popular left brain-right brain creativity cliché. "It's nice to bust some myths," he said before his bookstore reading. "Drawing with your non-dominant hand has its benefits, but as for unlocking your creative self--maybe not."
One researcher says that most of us are mixed-handed, that is, we perform nearly all functions bimanually, where the two hands work together in different ways. The idea is that neither hand is the weaker or lesser, but specialized for different functions and complementary things. More to the point for some of us, in baseball natural lefties have statistically more home runs but also more strike-outs and less control, because the dominant hand is in the power grip position, not the precision position.
But how is handedness determined? Capacity for speech plays an integral part in the discussion. It seems to boil down to a chicken and egg thing: did anatomical changes to hands spur the asymmetrical evolution of our brains or is right-handedness a by-product of the evolution of language-capable brains? As for the mechanics of the process, Wolman clearly explains the research of Nobutaka Hirokawa, at Tokyo University School of Medicine : "Handedness may stem from the string of developmental instructions that make us asymmetrical beings in the first place." In looking at protein's role in the transport of nutrient and information within nerve cells, he discovered monocilia, tiny, hair-like structures that spin from right to left. The theory is they cause the flow of contents to one side of the protein, causing lopsidedness.
Too much science for you? Wolman said, "I wanted to take the material seriously, but not take myself too seriously." So he goes to what could be considered the other end of the continuum: palmistry and handwriting analysis. In Quebec, he takes a 30-hour course in Vedic Palmistry. After his first session, he begins calculating how long it would take to walk the eight miles back to the local town in order to leave or at least find a bar. Driven back by aggressive black flies when he attempts the walk, he hunkers down and tries to get with the program. Initially skeptical, he ends up more so at the end, feeling used by plugs for books, healing gemstones and tri-metal bracelets. In Virginia, he attends a weekend seminar put on by Handwriting University, whose owner analyzed the writing on the envelope used to deliver anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy in 2001. (Whatever happened to that investigation?) He was promised that with Handwriting U training, he'd be able to understand Michael Jackson's personality. Instead of insight into handedness on writing and personality, he unhappily finds a mindset "reminiscent of zealots the world over . . . both annoying and creepy."
For even more hands-on research, Wolman visits a Scottish castle with a counterclockwise left-handed staircase. The staircase enabled the left-handed owner to wield his sword in an open passage against an ascending assailant. And in the funniest chapter, "Naisu Boru," he enters a golf tournament in Karuizawa, Japan, put on by WALG, the World Association of Left Handed Golfers. Although he's played only four games of golf in his life, he's game, although he hasn't got game. After his first exhilarating and successful drive, things fall quickly apart, confirming the opinion of a Nike marketing whiz he called to ask about sponsorship: "In light of the impossibility of legitimate skill development, I was determined to mask my ineptitude by at least looking the part. Although the phone call . . . ended abruptly, the woman said something to the effect of: 'So let me get this straight. You've barely ever played golf, which means you're likely to play badly, maybe even come in last. Why would we want you wearing Nike?' " A missed opportunity for Nike, since David Wolman is funny, smart, gracious and photogenic.
A quote from one of the scientists mentioned, Chris McManus, sums up another aspect of A Left-Hand Turn Around the World--the cultural facets of left-handedness: "Wherever one looks, on any continent, in any historical period or in any culture, right and left have their symbolic associations and always it is right that is good and left that is bad." The author discusses the etymological roots of left, which are "just about as depressing as it gets. The Anglo-Saxon lyft means weak or broken . . . most definitions of left reduce to an image of doubtful sincerity and clumsiness", and let's not forget the worse sinister. But he is quick to say, with a smile, "I'm not here to push a thesis that we are a persecuted people." He would like to make a case for left-handers being sexier though, and said, with a laugh, "I'd love my wife a little more if she were left-handed."--Marilyn Dahl
For more information on both the book and David Wolman's book tour, visit, with a right click, his Web site.
Shelf Awareness caught up with author David Wolman near the beginning of his counter-clockwise book tour, while he still had promotional pens to hand out--not strictly left-hand pens but guaranteed not to smudge. As a leftie and a journalist with a penchant for travel and science, he is well-equipped to deal with the question he posed: "If left-handed were a religion, where would Mecca be?" His search for answers about how left-handers might differ mentally, physically and spiritually from the right-handed majority resulted in A Left-Hand Turn Around the World (Da Capo Press, $23.95, 0306814153, November). Accessible and amusing, it has a sufficient amount of science to interest the technically-inclined but is lucid enough for everyone to grasp the rudimentary concepts.
He pursues one theory and then another about the development of handedness, as does the reader, sleuthing beside the author. Along the way, he clears up misconceptions, particularly the popular left brain-right brain creativity cliché. "It's nice to bust some myths," he said before his bookstore reading. "Drawing with your non-dominant hand has its benefits, but as for unlocking your creative self--maybe not."
One researcher says that most of us are mixed-handed, that is, we perform nearly all functions bimanually, where the two hands work together in different ways. The idea is that neither hand is the weaker or lesser, but specialized for different functions and complementary things. More to the point for some of us, in baseball natural lefties have statistically more home runs but also more strike-outs and less control, because the dominant hand is in the power grip position, not the precision position.
But how is handedness determined? Capacity for speech plays an integral part in the discussion. It seems to boil down to a chicken and egg thing: did anatomical changes to hands spur the asymmetrical evolution of our brains or is right-handedness a by-product of the evolution of language-capable brains? As for the mechanics of the process, Wolman clearly explains the research of Nobutaka Hirokawa, at Tokyo University School of Medicine : "Handedness may stem from the string of developmental instructions that make us asymmetrical beings in the first place." In looking at protein's role in the transport of nutrient and information within nerve cells, he discovered monocilia, tiny, hair-like structures that spin from right to left. The theory is they cause the flow of contents to one side of the protein, causing lopsidedness.
Too much science for you? Wolman said, "I wanted to take the material seriously, but not take myself too seriously." So he goes to what could be considered the other end of the continuum: palmistry and handwriting analysis. In Quebec, he takes a 30-hour course in Vedic Palmistry. After his first session, he begins calculating how long it would take to walk the eight miles back to the local town in order to leave or at least find a bar. Driven back by aggressive black flies when he attempts the walk, he hunkers down and tries to get with the program. Initially skeptical, he ends up more so at the end, feeling used by plugs for books, healing gemstones and tri-metal bracelets. In Virginia, he attends a weekend seminar put on by Handwriting University, whose owner analyzed the writing on the envelope used to deliver anthrax to Senators Daschle and Leahy in 2001. (Whatever happened to that investigation?) He was promised that with Handwriting U training, he'd be able to understand Michael Jackson's personality. Instead of insight into handedness on writing and personality, he unhappily finds a mindset "reminiscent of zealots the world over . . . both annoying and creepy."
For even more hands-on research, Wolman visits a Scottish castle with a counterclockwise left-handed staircase. The staircase enabled the left-handed owner to wield his sword in an open passage against an ascending assailant. And in the funniest chapter, "Naisu Boru," he enters a golf tournament in Karuizawa, Japan, put on by WALG, the World Association of Left Handed Golfers. Although he's played only four games of golf in his life, he's game, although he hasn't got game. After his first exhilarating and successful drive, things fall quickly apart, confirming the opinion of a Nike marketing whiz he called to ask about sponsorship: "In light of the impossibility of legitimate skill development, I was determined to mask my ineptitude by at least looking the part. Although the phone call . . . ended abruptly, the woman said something to the effect of: 'So let me get this straight. You've barely ever played golf, which means you're likely to play badly, maybe even come in last. Why would we want you wearing Nike?' " A missed opportunity for Nike, since David Wolman is funny, smart, gracious and photogenic.
A quote from one of the scientists mentioned, Chris McManus, sums up another aspect of A Left-Hand Turn Around the World--the cultural facets of left-handedness: "Wherever one looks, on any continent, in any historical period or in any culture, right and left have their symbolic associations and always it is right that is good and left that is bad." The author discusses the etymological roots of left, which are "just about as depressing as it gets. The Anglo-Saxon lyft means weak or broken . . . most definitions of left reduce to an image of doubtful sincerity and clumsiness", and let's not forget the worse sinister. But he is quick to say, with a smile, "I'm not here to push a thesis that we are a persecuted people." He would like to make a case for left-handers being sexier though, and said, with a laugh, "I'd love my wife a little more if she were left-handed."--Marilyn Dahl
For more information on both the book and David Wolman's book tour, visit, with a right click, his Web site.