The Body: A Guide for Occupants

Recommended to me by a friend with a biology Doctorate. I wasn’t disappointed. Bryson breaks down everything from cells to aging with humor and clarity. Packed with facts but never ever dry. It’s smart but never preachy. Finished it and immediately wanted everyone I know to read it too. Great!

A fascinating journey from top to toe. Bill is a storyteller par excellence. Who knew that none of the cells making up your body, touch each other? It's a case of each cell having positive and negative force. Every single one of his books is a 'must read' fir various reasons. Funny, engaging, informative, beautifully crafted stories which leave you feeling that you've found a new friend who takes you on impeccably researched journeys

I have read many of the Bill Bryson travel books over the years and a couple of the more static ones as well. This, of course, is a sort of travel book - just travelling around the body rather than a country. There are 445 pages, split into 23, named, chapters - each based on a section of the body or a bodily experience/function. It was first published in 2019 with this version being printed in 2020. Immediately, the reader is thrown into Bill Bryson's huge bank of research material where the almost irrelevant sits alongside the absolutely vital. The book was published before the Covid pandemic so it is particularly interesting to read about subjects such as viruses and loss of smell without the inevitable references that would have appeared a couple of years on. As ever, the author takes a logical approach to his subject as he gradually works his way around the body - educating and entertaining as he goes. Bill Bryson is an intelligent man and proficient at being able to read scientific information then put it into terms that a general reader will find interesting (and understand!). He does this in a way that includes the reader, always respecting them and without being patronising. It's many years since I studied Biology at school yet many of the principles I learnt are discussed in this book (and it is a discussion as BB is continually having a conversation with himself) - much of the basic facts have remained the same whilst many of the details have moved on or been disproved. Many contributors are quoted and Bill Bryon has met up with a few of them. Where possible, he always tries to describe the person first, engaging the reader and hoping that if you like someone then you are more likely to trust them. It's clear that many widely believed facts about the body have been proved to be wrong or, at the very least, are widely believed to be wrong by the scientific community (for example, the belief that the appendix has no purpose). During his research it seems to be a common situation that the wrong person is credited with findings. Often an individual is made famous by publishing a breakthrough that someone else found. Whenever he finds this. BB puts the record straight (although I suspect the correct names will not stick in my head for long). Occasionally the science gets too much but he always quickly brings it down again. Fascinating read where I learnt a lot.

Much better known as a travel writer, in recent years Bryson has turned his talents to more complex subjects, such as language, historical figures, science and now this volume, the human body. As he proved in his hugely successful book "A Short History of (Nearly) Everything)" Bryson possesses language skills that translate complicated science into easy-to-digest morsels, usually with an added twist of his sardonic humor to heighten the flavour. Nobody does science and fact quite like Bill Bryson: he has hit the nail on the head again with this offering, which should be required reading for all schoolkids from the age they can understand big words. Really, it kicks into redundancy all those dull, dry fact-on-fact-after-fact text books most of us struggled through at school. Kids will learn more much more quickly via Bryson's unique approach. So, whether you're ten years old or 110 years old, there is still much to be learned from Bryson's fabulous volume. Honestly, you'll learn stuff about you that will amaze and astound you, perhaps even scare or nauseate you. Whatever your reaction one thing I can guarantee is that at points you'll snicker, giggle and actually laugh out loud as Bill Bryson does what he does best: entertains. And, that, folks, is the very best thing about this volume - and, to be fair, all of Bryson's work - they entertain as well and inform. What more could you ask for?

This is one of those books I feel so strongly that everyone should read that I keep quoting from it to friends and probably boring everyone to tears about. You really do need to read it for yourself to understand how vital it is for people to grasp how their bodies work, and how although much of what goes wrong is out of our control, a lot, on the other hand, is down to our life style choices (our fondness for sugary and processed foods and general reluctance to exercise). I was also shocked on many occasions in the book - for example the grim cancer survival rates in Britain compared to the rest of the better off nations. I felt quite faint reading a description of how mastectomies used to be performed and about "neglected tropical diseases". If the author were not so well known and respected I would have several times thought the statistics he quoted couldn't possibly be accurate, but as I know that is not the case I just muttered "no" and "wow" and "surely not" as I read. I was amazed about Mitochondrial Eve, and the shocking maternal death rate in the USA and their extremely low life expectancy compared to their colossal health care spending, as well as TB rates in London (rivalling those of Brazil and Nigeria). What an incredibly prescient book too. He mentions the dangers of zoonotic diseases and asks a leading expert what he thought the biggest risk to humans was and he replied "flu". A few months later the Covid pandemic started and Bryson was able to add an afterword shortly before the book went to print, urging world leaders to be better prepared - because of course there will be many more these viral pandemics. The only slightly jarring note in the entertaining, fascinating and important book is the repeated use of "we don't know about X, Y and Z." I got the point early on, we know a great deal, but in the grand scheme of things we are only just beginning to discover our bodies and how they work.

A book everyone should read. Loads and loads of interesting facts, presented in a very readable way. Lots of little snippets of interesting facts about many of the real characters in the book. Puts lots of things into perspective.

I bought this book because I love Bill Bryson's hilarious writing style and I'm fascinated by the unique complex workings of the human body. Bryson's 'Complete History of Nearly Everything ' actually strengthened my spiritual beliefs rather than the reverse; backing up some long-believed myths with modern science and finally relegating others to the bin. This book's a bit like that - the text, delivered in chunks of rather bald fact -goes deeper than you think. There are chapters on every part of the human physical form. For example, skin, skeleton, brain, digestion, sex organs. There are more chapters on The working of The human body - sleep, and digestion. Finally there are insights, bang up to date, on conditions and diseases - blindness, cancer, e.g. et al. The one on skin, confirming in black and white just how little we differ below the surface, found its way, by virtue of several quotes, into a racism trial in London just this month. This book lacks the wit and humour of some of Bill's others and I considered giving it four stars; but you know, it sticks. I read it a bit at a time, and I might just go back for a second round. Good job.

Packed full of details, anecdotes and "wow I did NOT know that" moments. Great stuff.

Wonderfully written book with lot of facts.

The very good book to read and learn about the body and how it works. Highly recommended ♥️ Good book for the people who loves reading science field books. 📚

This is probably going to be my shortest book review ever! This book is simply a collection of facts, largely fun facts, about different parts of the body — the skin, hair, brain, head, the mouth, and so on. Bryson has achieved two remarkable things: (1) he has created a 400-page encyclopedia of the human body, and (2) he has made this the most fun-to-read encyclopedia ever. Since there is nothing much to review really, here are my top 10 fun facts from the book. (1) The human body is essentially a collection of inert elements — the same as in a pile of dirt. (2) The Royal Society of Chemistry calculated that assembling actor Benedict Cumberbatch from his basic chemical components would cost £96,546.79. (3) Race is merely a sliver of epidermis about a millimeter thick. (4) If flattened out, our lungs would cover a tennis court; our blood vessels, if laid end to end, would wrap around Earth 2.5 times; and our DNA, if stretched out, would extend beyond Pluto. (5) We grow 8 meters of hair in our lifetime. (6) Visual inputs take one-fifth of a second to process, so the brain continuously forecasts what the world will look like a fifth of a second ahead — we spend our entire lives living in a world that doesn't quite exist yet. (7) Volume doubles approximately every 6 decibels, meaning a 96-decibel sound isn't just slightly louder than a 90-decibel sound — it's twice as loud. (8) Although everyone reads and pronounces the last blood group as the letter "O," Landsteiner (who discovered blood types) actually meant it to be zero, since this type showed no clumping reaction. (9) During a single day of breathing, you likely inhale at least one molecule that was once exhaled by every person who has ever lived. (10) While studying specimens, Henking noticed one chromosome that always remained separate from the others. He named it "X" simply because it was mysterious, not because of its shape. Pros: Lots of interesting facts about the human body, comprehensive yet concise Cons: It's just a collection of interesting facts about the human body!

Un libro bien explicado para gente común, con muchas referencias y anécdotas que lo hacen fácil de leer. Muy recomendable. Felicidades al autotransporte!

I thought this book was fantastic, plenty of laughs and plenty of great information about the one thing every living person on earth has, a body.