How to Fly

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.