'Your Genes Unzipped' By Tim Spector (Robson Books 2003) - ISBN: 1861056621

Available at Waterstones, Borders and Books etc. or online at Amazon.co.uk

Synopsis: Have you ever wondered to what degree your personality, experiences and illnesses are predetermined by your genes? The significance of upbringing, lifestyle and the environment is often emphasised by psychologists, but genes are just as - and often more - influential on our lives.
In Your Genes Unzipped, Professor Tim Spector explores ninety real-life scenarios illustrating subjects ranging from allergies, autism and sexual behaviour, to baldness, back pain and insomnia. He tackles questions such as:

• Are we all genetically programmed to fall for a particular partner, or is love only down to chance and culture?
• Are childhood problems such as bullying or under-achievement a result of inadequate parenting or should we be blaming evolution and our genes?
• Why do only some people get addicted to cigarettes or alcohol and how do a few lifelong smokers manage to live to a ripe old age?

Alongside research into your family history, this fascinating and clearly written book will help you to understand how your genes, transmitted to you through thousands of generations, now respond to the modern environment. Your Genes Unzipped will aid you to avoid potential future health problems and benefit from the amazing breakthroughs in genetics that are occurring daily.

'Indivisible byTwo: Lives of Extraodinary Twins' By Nancy L. Segal (Harvard University Press 2005)- ISBN: 0674019334

Available online at Amazon.co.uk

Synopsis: A leading expert on twins delves into the stories behind her research to reveal the profound joys and real-life traumas of twelve remarkable sets of twins, triplets, and quadruplets.
Indivisible by Two introduces us to an assortment of memorable characters, from the "Fireman Twins"--brothers who, though reared separately, are astonishingly similar in personality and behavioral traits--to the twin sisters who overcame one twin's infertility by having the other serve as her surrogate mother. We meet one of the few identical brother-sister pairs in the world after one of two sisters was surgically transformed into a man, and identical triplet brothers, only one of whom is gay while the others are straight. We see uniquely blended families--identical twin brothers marrying identical twin sisters, and Chinese twins adopted by different Canadian families yet raised as sisters.
Being a twin can also render the experience of historical tragedy uniquely painful. We meet Stepha and Annetta, survivors of Josef Mengele's heinous experiments in Auschwitz, and untangle the troubled lifelong tie between Jack and Oskar, born in the 1930s to a Jewish father and a German Gentile mother, one raised as a Jew in Trinidad and the other as a Catholic and a member of the Hitler Youth in Nazi Germany.
Segal unravels these stories and others with an eye for the challenges that life as a twin (or triplet or quadruplet) can pose to parents, friends, and spouses, as well as the twins themselves. These moving stories remind us how incompletely any theory explains real life--twin or not.

'Two or The Book of Twins & Doubles' By Penelope Farmer (Virago Press 1996)- ISBN: 1853817058

Available online at Amazon.co.uk

Synopsis: 'Let me declare an interest right away. My pursuit of twins, far from being dispassionate is deeply autobiographical. The idea for this anthology arose from a piece I wrote which insisted on centring itself round the death of my twin sister...'
Thus begins Penelope Farmer's extraordinary autobiographical anthology of twins and doubles. Bravely and beautifully using her own story to introduce and define each section, this marvellous, eccentrically varied choice of extracts takes us through the labyrinth of myths, fears and longings from birth and parenthood (proud and horrified), through the love and hate that simultaneously binds and divides two souls, to the crisis (or relief) of separation and death. She looks at the freakish fascination that only twins and doubles can provoke and illuminate through fiction and nonfiction the non-twin's eternal envy and fear of the 'born couple', and the myths of twins as sacred or taboo. This leads to an exploration of reflections, shadows and alter egos, ending with the recurring splits and doubles in many writers' works and lives.
Her exhaustive collection of over two hundred and fifty authors' works, draws from myth to contemporary fiction, from folklore to psychology, from scientists' to twins' accounts of themselves. Taking this literary form to new heights - 'Walter Benjamin suggested writing a novel out of quotations. Well, as a novelist I will say this is my novel on twins' - Penelope Farmer draws us into the very essence of twins and doubles.

'Twins' Photographs by David Fields, Essays by Ruth and Rachel Sandweiss (Running Press 1998)- ISBN: 0762404043

Available online at Amazon.co.uk

Synopsis: Here is a fascinating portrait of the unique, profound, and complex relationship between twins. In original essays and photographs 27 sets of twins share the special joys and struggles they have faced growing up together or apart, the depth of understanding and unparalleled bond between them, and touching insights on the meaning of family and the importance of all sibling relationships.
Aldo and Mario Andretti speak of growing up together in Italy, moving to America, and sharing a dream of becoming racing champions. Dr. Raymond Brandt discusses the death of his twin brother and the healing process that led him to found Twinless Twin, a support group for other survivors of lost twin sibling. Rasheda Ali-Walsh and Jamillah Ali, the twin daughters of Muhammad Ali, talk about balancing twinship with romantic relationships. Jennine Bobardt shares her story of being a surrogate for her twin sister's triplets. Other twins within these pages share equally stirring and amusing stories, from being separated at birth and raised apart - only to meet later in life and discover uncanny similarities in personalities and tastes - to twin sisters who married twin brothers and now share a home together.
Twins is a revealing, poignant exploration of a unique relationship and a celebration of family, companionship, and love.