The Body

Books | Science / Life Sciences / Human Anatomy & Physiology

4.5

(806)

Bill Bryson

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A must-read owner’s manual for every body. Take a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body in this “delightful, anecdote-propelled read” (The Boston Globe) from the author of A Short History of Nearly Everything. With a new Afterword. “You will marvel at the brilliance and vast weirdness of your design." —The Washington Post Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque anecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, “We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted.” The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively readable facts and information. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best.

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More Details:

Author

Bill Bryson

Pages

464

Publisher

Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group

Published Date

2019-10-15

ISBN

0385539312 9780385539319

Ratings

Google: 4.5

Community ReviewsSee all

"This is an excellent book for the intellectually curious and/or those interested in #health, #evolution, #biology, etc. it’s a piece by piece walk through of how we are put together and how our bodies and minds work. I found it a bit long and dry at first but I liked it more and more as it went along. I listened to it and recommend that for those who enjoy audio books. Bryson narrates it himself and you can really hear the wonder in his voice and joy of his anecdotes. Very well done. "

Ian Morris

"Hilarious, informative, bill Bryson does it again. "

Emily Tancredi

"Written by Bill Bryson, The Body goes through humans, explaining how we work and telling the stories of the scientists who figured it out. Bryson did a wonderful job at keeping the book legible to the average person and adding some humor in there. My favorite parts of the book were when the scientists' lives who discovered so many of our systems were named along with their lives. This was interesting because so much of what we know about ourselves comes from people who lived horrible lives doing immoral tests on people, sometimes coming to extremely incorrect treatments of the ailments that plague us. From bloodletting to lobotomies, Bryson led us through the body section by section, keeping related information combined into fact filled chapters. My favorite of these facts is that cartilage is smoother than glass and has five times less friction, so if you went ice skating on cartilage then you would go 20x faster than skating on ice. This book is not for the squeamish, as some sections of it can become quite graphic, but for those that can take it, it is the only anatomy book I will probably ever recommend. My favorite chapter was Chapter 12: The Immune System, which covered the complexity of our white blood cells and bacteria that fights off sickness. I found it to be so interesting since our body makes so few mistakes while keeping us alive against the bacteria and viruses that surround us. I rate this book a 9/10 because, for what I was expecting it to be, it was super simple and very interesting. "

Halle Shearer

"This book predicted the future. It literally said “hey you know what’s gonna happen? A global pandemic and we’re not prepared for it” it’s wild! I loved this book so much! A lot of fun facts about the human body. Informative and fun!"