ENTANGLEMENT: THE SECRET LIVES OF HAIR by Emma Tarlo

(Oneworld £10.99) EMMA Tarlo is a professor of anthropology at Goldsmiths, University of London, who is fascinated by human hair, which is prized and fetishised throughout the world and is the raw material of a billion-dollar global industry.

Her book takes us from Chinese wig factories to the salons of Senegal, where human hair extensions sell for several times the average monthly salary. She visits Indian temples where pilgrims come to make devotional offerings of their hair, and meets Myanmar villagers who laboriously comb tangled bundles of discarded cuttings into sleek tresses.

She even discovers a West London entrepreneur who set up a website where people advertise their own hair for sale. Intriguing, surprising and sometimes tragic, this is a captivating account of our crowning glory.