Name: The Body
Rating: 4.247899159663866 (119 reviews)
ISBN: 9780385539302

Bill Bryson

"From the bestselling author of A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING, a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body"--

A Guide for Occupants

The Body

Phil

Makes it fun and easy to learn about the different bodily systems and functions.

Greg Talbot

"If any thing is sacred the human body is sacred, And the glory and sweet of a man is the token of manhood untainted, And in man or woman a clean, strong, firm-fibred body, is more beautiful than the most beautiful face" - Walt Whitman “Before you worry about the beauty of your body, worry about the health of your body.” ― Amit Kalantri, Wealth of Words As is a winter tradition, another year, another Bill Bryson book (my 8th at this time). Bryson examines with insight, humor and historical antedotes the corporeal. From the surface level skin, to the bony structure, to the interconnecting ligaments. Encyclopedic in presentation, but with enough creative spark and witty humor we, Bryson goes through it all. I enjoy Bryson's first person's narratives greatly (particularly the appalachian trail-blazing "Walk in the Woods"...but there is enough of Bryson's voice to come out here. And that shines most notably when he describes the historical accidents (microbiota specimens) or tragedies (radiation) that produced our current wellspring of knowledge. One of the other joys is that the knowledge feels incredibly recent to our own human development. The stats on life expectancy, the amount we sleep now, or the temperature of the human body (now 97.5 average!) are a reminder that as a superorganism, we are constantly in change. A Bill Bryson book is a good companion for continual following-up. Like a bathroom read, or a coffee table companion. For a dive into the mysterious world of our body, I can find of few books with such a wide array of somatic areas.

Patrick Book

Every Bill Bryson is like a quaint waterfall of minor revelations, just constantly washing over you. He's a treat.

'We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it. The idea of the book is simply to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us.' In the bestselling, prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the science of our world both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now he turns his attention inwards to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up. A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this book will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again. 'What I learned is that we are infinitely more complex and wondrous, and often more mysterious, than I had ever suspected. There really is no story more amazing than the story of us.' Bill Bryson

Apurva Chitnis

This was a fun read, full of trivia about different aspects of the human body.

My main takeaways are:
* We still don’t understand how much of the body works.
* Given this, modern medicine is truly a marvel. Most of what we know was discovered in the last 100 years, and it’s still being actively researched today.
* Doctors and research in times gone by have done more to save lives than perhaps any modern politician. Sadly, we remember very few of their names or achievements today.

Lord Aragorn

A wonderful exploration of the human body. Fascinating how much we know and yet don't know about the way the body works. Loved the anecdotes about how various medical discoveries were made. Some descriptions of historical medical procedures sounded pretty barbarous. A reminder of how the process of gaining knowledge can be painful and requires sacrifice. 

This might be one of those books I end up reading multiple times.

Simao Freitas

Amazing book. It’s detailed enough to be informative and lightweight enough to be a super pleasant reading.

Andy Sporring

Interesting overview of the body and its parts. Even an estimate of what all the "parts" would cost if you build a body from scratch

Jk Jensen

In typical Bill Brysonry, the author has jam-packed The Body full of well-researched information in an approachable format. The sections on viruses and the immune system were especially meaningful given the current COVID-19 pandemic.

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER _______ 'A directory of wonders.' – The Guardian 'Jaw-dropping.' – The Times 'Classic, wry, gleeful Bryson...an entertaining and absolutely fact-rammed book.' – The Sunday Times 'It is a feat of narrative skill to bake so many facts into an entertaining and nutritious book.' – The Daily Telegraph _______ ‘We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it. The idea of the book is simply to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us.’ Bill Bryson sets off to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up. A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this new book is an instant classic. It will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again. ‘What I learned is that we are infinitely more complex and wondrous, and often more mysterious, than I had ever suspected. There really is no story more amazing than the story of us.’ Bill Bryson

Colin Das

One of my favorite books I read in 2020 and a  landmark book  in terms of my thinking about medicine and the human body. 

This book is equal parts: medical history and fun biological facts. It nicely demystifies some things, yet also makes clear which mysteries are still open. Its chapters are each part of the body: brain, guts, hands, etc. 

Bill Bryson writes well and he has a style of making  high-magnitude analogies  , eg, "Every hour your heart dispenses around 70 gallons of blood. That’s 1,680 gallons in a day—more gallons pushed through you in a day than you are likely to put in your car in a year." and using  contrasting thinking  (bundling pro's and con's), eg, "Your brain does all these things for you because it is designed to help you in every way it can. Yet paradoxically it is also strikingly unreliable.". 

I like his weird sarcasm: [Viruses] "like bacteria, ... are incredibly successful". The penicillin story was good: "Every bit of penicillin made since that day is descended from that single random cantaloupe." But the story of antibiotics is weird and concerning. They are like grenades (killing everything, both good and bad). We've stopped developing them because it's gotten too expensive -- and some bacteria have outpaced our antibiotics. This line was also sad "Almost three-quarters of the forty million antibiotic prescriptions written each year in the United States are for conditions that cannot be cured with antibiotics."

Overall, strong recommendation.

Kyle S

This book will make you marvel at the amazing things your body does to keep you alive and also extremely grateful that you've survived as long as you have. 5/5

A bit long and repetitive at times, but still a wonderful guide through the complex machine that is our body. Something i learned after finishing the book, which i suspected before starting - we understand so much about our body but we know frighteningly little about it. I respect a book that uses the words, "we simply don't know why this happens", and yet manages to teach the reader so much more nevertheless. 

Hamed Khalidi

Rachel ✨

Liv Strefford

So many interesting facts jam-packed into this book, really enjoyed it, just got a bit bored towards the end

Josh Clement

Didn’t love this like I’ve loved other Bryson stuff. Every sentence felt like it was a fact, which get a bit tiring to read after a while.

Charmaine

A must read to understand yourself and the history of life.

Flavia Louise

This was really interesting and informative though for me it could have gone even more in depths and also it could have been more intersectional.

Nadine 

What a prescient book on the body with its several references to viruses, epidemics, the flu etc. It's a bit of a tour-de-force about the body summarising pretty much everything I've read recently on any aspects of the body or medical matters / histories / personalities.
There are also several nice nods to people who were for one reason or another not acknowledged for their contributions to the body of knowledge. 
A nice light but comprehensive read.

Natalie Stenson

Audiobook. I enjoyed this so much. Packed with fascinating information and some very entertaining anecdotes. I’m now constantly annoying everyone with ‘Did you know...’

Lukas Gräf

Probably my favorite book since “why we sleep”, so many great insights into the human body. What’s so remarkable and exciting is that a lot of things are still unknown but Bill Bryson manages to put a lot of interesting and new facts into this book. 
Nevertheless I had so many questions still after reading certain chapters that I would want to read up on several topics more in depth. So if any of you out there can recommend further books that act as a follow up, please do recommend :)

The Body A Guide for Occupants

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