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The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Goodreads Choice Award
Nominee for Best Science & Technology (2019)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.
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.
450 pages, Hardcover
First published October 15, 2019
About the author
Bill Bryson
144 books20.2k followersWilliam McGuire "Bill" Bryson, OBE, FRS was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.
In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, he chronicled a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. It was followed by Neither Here Nor There, an account of his first trip around Europe. Other travel books include the massive bestseller Notes From a Small Island, which won the 2003 World Book Day National Poll to find the book which best represented modern England, followed by A Walk in the Woods (in which Stephen Katz, his travel companion from Neither Here Nor There, made a welcome reappearance), Notes From a Big Country and Down Under.
Bill Bryson has also written several highly praised books on the English language, including Mother Tongue and Made in America. In his last book, he turned his attention to science. A Short History of Nearly Everything was lauded with critical acclaim, and became a huge bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, before going on to win the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. His next book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, is a memoir of growing up in 1950s America, featuring another appearance from his old friend Stephen Katz. October 8 sees the publication of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything.
In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, he chronicled a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. It was followed by Neither Here Nor There, an account of his first trip around Europe. Other travel books include the massive bestseller Notes From a Small Island, which won the 2003 World Book Day National Poll to find the book which best represented modern England, followed by A Walk in the Woods (in which Stephen Katz, his travel companion from Neither Here Nor There, made a welcome reappearance), Notes From a Big Country and Down Under.
Bill Bryson has also written several highly praised books on the English language, including Mother Tongue and Made in America. In his last book, he turned his attention to science. A Short History of Nearly Everything was lauded with critical acclaim, and became a huge bestseller. It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, before going on to win the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. His next book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, is a memoir of growing up in 1950s America, featuring another appearance from his old friend Stephen Katz. October 8 sees the publication of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 9,282 reviews
March 3, 2020
I went into this book with the attitude of "of course, Bill Bryson can make anything interesting", but I was still a little unsure if this was the right book for me. There are definitely interesting aspects of the body, but I'm more of a "fun fact here, quirky tidbit there" kinda person. I wasn't sure I wanted to read a whole book full of words I can't pronounce. But, no, Bill Bryson really can make anything interesting.
His usual charismatic, undemanding style is all over this book. He begins with the head and takes us all the way through the physiology of the human body. The organs, systems, various proteins and bacterium that I will never remember the name of. What really makes this interesting is that he links each part of the body in with the history of medicine and diseases relating to that part. He pulls out little anecdotes that shocked me, infuriated me, and often made me laugh.
Bryson knows he isn't writing a book for medical professionals here. There's a certain amount of depth in some chapters, but it feels like a lot is probably skimmed over so us laymen can wrap our heads around the information. And, frankly, it wouldn't be nearly as readable if that wasn't the case.
My one big takeaway from The Body is that we know almost nothing about the body. We know so much more than we did a hundred years ago, and yet we still know almost nothing. I swear that about ten times in every chapter, there's a comment like "these cells do this, but nobody knows why" or "women are 10x more likely to get this disease than men, but why is anybody's guess". I mean, we spend a third of our lives asleep and no one even knows why we do that.
I like how Bryson looks at health and disease across the world and not just in the United States and Europe. Though the U.S. comes out of this looking even worse than I would have anticipated. Despite spending more on healthcare per person than any other country, U.S. citizens die younger and have higher rates of chronic disease, depression, drug abuse, homicide, and HIV than almost all (if not all) developed nations. There are a number of theories why, though no one knows for sure.
If you like Bryson's previous books, you should like this one. It's pop science, and more fun than it is ground-breaking, but as long as you're not planning to use it as your handbook for experimental surgery, then I see nothing wrong with that.
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His usual charismatic, undemanding style is all over this book. He begins with the head and takes us all the way through the physiology of the human body. The organs, systems, various proteins and bacterium that I will never remember the name of. What really makes this interesting is that he links each part of the body in with the history of medicine and diseases relating to that part. He pulls out little anecdotes that shocked me, infuriated me, and often made me laugh.
Bryson knows he isn't writing a book for medical professionals here. There's a certain amount of depth in some chapters, but it feels like a lot is probably skimmed over so us laymen can wrap our heads around the information. And, frankly, it wouldn't be nearly as readable if that wasn't the case.
My one big takeaway from The Body is that we know almost nothing about the body. We know so much more than we did a hundred years ago, and yet we still know almost nothing. I swear that about ten times in every chapter, there's a comment like "these cells do this, but nobody knows why" or "women are 10x more likely to get this disease than men, but why is anybody's guess". I mean, we spend a third of our lives asleep and no one even knows why we do that.
I like how Bryson looks at health and disease across the world and not just in the United States and Europe. Though the U.S. comes out of this looking even worse than I would have anticipated. Despite spending more on healthcare per person than any other country, U.S. citizens die younger and have higher rates of chronic disease, depression, drug abuse, homicide, and HIV than almost all (if not all) developed nations. There are a number of theories why, though no one knows for sure.
If you like Bryson's previous books, you should like this one. It's pop science, and more fun than it is ground-breaking, but as long as you're not planning to use it as your handbook for experimental surgery, then I see nothing wrong with that.
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March 20, 2022
I learned so much from this book. One of the things I learned was that continuing to learn and keeping my brain active will help me avoid dementia, so you should read this book, too. I highlighted many pages, so I’ll just offer a few highlights here.
The thing I found fascinating was reading about our skin, the tiny layer that we makes us white or black or brown. Bryson watched a surgeon incise and peel back a sliver of skin a millimeter thick from the arm of cadaver. It was so thin it was translucent. That’s what race is. Which is why it’s so ridiculous that such a small facet of our composition should be given so much importance when it’s merely a reaction to sunlight. “Biologically, there is no such thing as race—nothing in terms of skin color, facial features, hair type, bone structure, or anything else that is a defining quality among peoples.”
Skin gets its color from a variety of pigments, the best known is a molecule we know as melanin. It’s also responsible for the color of birds’ feathers and gives fish the texture and luminescence of the their scales. Our skin evolved based on our geography.
A lot of myths I grew up with are not true. Like the fact we only use ten percent of our brain--false. I was taught as a kid that different parts of the tongue were attuned to different tastes like salty, sweet, sour. Nope. Also, like the movie the Matrix, apparently when I eat a brownie straight from the oven, it doesn’t actually taste good, my brain just reads these scentless, flavorless molecules and makes me think they’re pleasurable.
In one of the studies he talks about, a man was given an injection of a harmless liquid to mimic snot. It couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, but under those blue lights detectives use. The test subject went into a room with other folks, and when they turned the overhead lights off and the blue lights on, every single person, doorknob, and bowl of nuts had the pretend snot on it, which is how the common cold passes from person to person so easily—through touch, apparently not by making out with someone (although presumably at some point you might touch that person).
Antibiotics
• Almost 3/4ths of prescriptions written each year are for conditions that can’t be cured with antibiotics (like bronchitis).
• 80 percent of antibiotics are fed to farm animals to fatten them up, which meat eaters then consume, which is one of the reasons antibiotics aren’t as effective as they used to be.
• Fruit growers use antibiotics to combat bacterial infections in their crops, sometimes even of produce marked “organic.” This means we humans are unwittingly eating antibiotics, rendering them ineffective when we need them for a real disease/infection.
There’s a lot more interesting stuff in here. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book, which RELEASES OCTOBER 15, 2019.
The thing I found fascinating was reading about our skin, the tiny layer that we makes us white or black or brown. Bryson watched a surgeon incise and peel back a sliver of skin a millimeter thick from the arm of cadaver. It was so thin it was translucent. That’s what race is. Which is why it’s so ridiculous that such a small facet of our composition should be given so much importance when it’s merely a reaction to sunlight. “Biologically, there is no such thing as race—nothing in terms of skin color, facial features, hair type, bone structure, or anything else that is a defining quality among peoples.”
Skin gets its color from a variety of pigments, the best known is a molecule we know as melanin. It’s also responsible for the color of birds’ feathers and gives fish the texture and luminescence of the their scales. Our skin evolved based on our geography.
A lot of myths I grew up with are not true. Like the fact we only use ten percent of our brain--false. I was taught as a kid that different parts of the tongue were attuned to different tastes like salty, sweet, sour. Nope. Also, like the movie the Matrix, apparently when I eat a brownie straight from the oven, it doesn’t actually taste good, my brain just reads these scentless, flavorless molecules and makes me think they’re pleasurable.
In one of the studies he talks about, a man was given an injection of a harmless liquid to mimic snot. It couldn’t be seen by the naked eye, but under those blue lights detectives use. The test subject went into a room with other folks, and when they turned the overhead lights off and the blue lights on, every single person, doorknob, and bowl of nuts had the pretend snot on it, which is how the common cold passes from person to person so easily—through touch, apparently not by making out with someone (although presumably at some point you might touch that person).
Antibiotics
• Almost 3/4ths of prescriptions written each year are for conditions that can’t be cured with antibiotics (like bronchitis).
• 80 percent of antibiotics are fed to farm animals to fatten them up, which meat eaters then consume, which is one of the reasons antibiotics aren’t as effective as they used to be.
• Fruit growers use antibiotics to combat bacterial infections in their crops, sometimes even of produce marked “organic.” This means we humans are unwittingly eating antibiotics, rendering them ineffective when we need them for a real disease/infection.
There’s a lot more interesting stuff in here. Thanks so much to NetGalley for the opportunity to read this book, which RELEASES OCTOBER 15, 2019.
January 10, 2020
This was actually really good!
Highly recommend it if the topic interested you, the audiobook was also great!
Highly recommend it if the topic interested you, the audiobook was also great!
November 11, 2019
The definition of a “well” person?
Someone who hasn’t been examined yet
(loosely quoted from the book)
This book is two things:
- Really interesting trivia about the human body
- Terrifying
I love trivia, and this book had tons of it. This was not a deeply scientific analysis of the human body. It is just snippets and brief anecdotes from various regions of the body as Bryson takes you on a journey through our innerspace. If you are not into big fancy words and meandering analysis, then you need not worry! There may be a time or two that he throws some deeper tidbits in, but it always moves on quickly. A good balance to keep both a med student and the layman interested (just guessing on the med student side as I am most certainly the layman!)
So – yay, trivia!
However, I will have to say, more often than not, the book journeys off in the direction of what can go wrong with the body. This is not surprising as a lot can go wrong with the body. However, it is not a book to read while eating, if you have hypochondria, if you have germ phobia, if the word “parasite” gives you heebie-jeebies, etc. While it may all be true, perhaps somethings are better off left unknown!
With these two things in mind, proceed at your own risk! If you love trivia and don’t mind dumbed down science, this should be perfect for you. If you are a doctor, it may be too simple of an explanation to satisfy – or, maybe not??? If you are easily queasy when it comes to blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids and functions, I would suggest passing on this one.
But, when all is said and done, another decent book from Bryson!
Someone who hasn’t been examined yet
(loosely quoted from the book)
This book is two things:
- Really interesting trivia about the human body
- Terrifying
I love trivia, and this book had tons of it. This was not a deeply scientific analysis of the human body. It is just snippets and brief anecdotes from various regions of the body as Bryson takes you on a journey through our innerspace. If you are not into big fancy words and meandering analysis, then you need not worry! There may be a time or two that he throws some deeper tidbits in, but it always moves on quickly. A good balance to keep both a med student and the layman interested (just guessing on the med student side as I am most certainly the layman!)
So – yay, trivia!
However, I will have to say, more often than not, the book journeys off in the direction of what can go wrong with the body. This is not surprising as a lot can go wrong with the body. However, it is not a book to read while eating, if you have hypochondria, if you have germ phobia, if the word “parasite” gives you heebie-jeebies, etc. While it may all be true, perhaps somethings are better off left unknown!
With these two things in mind, proceed at your own risk! If you love trivia and don’t mind dumbed down science, this should be perfect for you. If you are a doctor, it may be too simple of an explanation to satisfy – or, maybe not??? If you are easily queasy when it comes to blood, vomit, and other bodily fluids and functions, I would suggest passing on this one.
But, when all is said and done, another decent book from Bryson!
January 4, 2021
(Throwback review) If you are in quarantine due to Covid-19 and if you want to read just one book, this is the one you should pick. Chapter 20 (When things go wrong) in this book is a must-read one as it is perfectly explaining the current scenario we are facing. This book will help us know more about our body, which might enable us to appreciate its uniqueness even when challenged it is to the extreme by a virus.
I read this book amid all the pandemonium I had to face as a Doctor and, more importantly, as a human being. I will share the last paragraph of chapter 20 (page 335) due to its current relevance.
Well, it seems that we can't write that sentence again.
I read this book amid all the pandemonium I had to face as a Doctor and, more importantly, as a human being. I will share the last paragraph of chapter 20 (page 335) due to its current relevance.
" The fact is we are really no better prepared for a bad outbreak today than we were when Spanish flu killed tens of millions of people a hundred years ago. The reason we haven't had another experience like that isn't because we have been especially vigilant. It's because we have been lucky."
Well, it seems that we can't write that sentence again.
December 14, 2019
To know that one does not know how not just even a tiny part of the body works is the first step to getting interested in exploring each fascinating, inner landscape.
From up to down, inside to outside, young to old, organ to nerve and so on goes the journey trough our miraculous wonder of nature whose amazing eyes are just sending this information to the brain of the reader.
Many myths about the body are shown and design flaws described, but after billion years of evolution, that´s no wonder. We deliberately build in design flaws in everything we create and call it planned obsolescence and what is an appendix or other useless extra bonus parts compared to that.
We really don´t understand anything in detail as shown in many great examples and the cool thing is that we once again stand in front of an ocean of lack of knowledge with that stereotypical hand full of sand and much that we believe to know about our body today might turn out to be completely different or even wrong.
Especially because of the tininess we still have to explore and to discover areas of nano and quanta. Take physics, we don´t know anything, so what could this say about a system as complex as the human body in a world we hardly understand? Photosynthesis in plants seems to do it´s work with something creepy that just can be explained with some kind of not understood quanta phenomena teleportation stuff and, in some rare cases, we are more complex than vegetables.
The most interesting implication of hidden dept comes for the mind, brain, conscience and ego. When over 1 billion copies of this book could be stored in an area of the cerebral cortex the size of a grain of sand, there is pretty much space for unknown programs running in the background, possibly with programming and instructions from wherever and whomever.
Because we don´t understand, we should treat the body as good as possible with a diet of things and thoughts of which we know that they are not harmful
Like all of Bryson´s books, it an entertaining and great read, integrating history, medical science and vivid examples that stay in mind and easily find a way to a long term memory whose functioning we don´t understand to associate it with a brain we know nothing about and a mind that,... well, you get the meaning.
It´s better and more informative than biology education and in my imagination I see books like this in a close future with much more data, pictures, animations, links of different grade of difficulty for each kind of reader, VR, AR and the integration of the reading audience, probably with a kinda collective reading live streams while using different kinds of technologies or just old school reading.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science...
Tropes show how literature is conceived and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
From up to down, inside to outside, young to old, organ to nerve and so on goes the journey trough our miraculous wonder of nature whose amazing eyes are just sending this information to the brain of the reader.
Many myths about the body are shown and design flaws described, but after billion years of evolution, that´s no wonder. We deliberately build in design flaws in everything we create and call it planned obsolescence and what is an appendix or other useless extra bonus parts compared to that.
We really don´t understand anything in detail as shown in many great examples and the cool thing is that we once again stand in front of an ocean of lack of knowledge with that stereotypical hand full of sand and much that we believe to know about our body today might turn out to be completely different or even wrong.
Especially because of the tininess we still have to explore and to discover areas of nano and quanta. Take physics, we don´t know anything, so what could this say about a system as complex as the human body in a world we hardly understand? Photosynthesis in plants seems to do it´s work with something creepy that just can be explained with some kind of not understood quanta phenomena teleportation stuff and, in some rare cases, we are more complex than vegetables.
The most interesting implication of hidden dept comes for the mind, brain, conscience and ego. When over 1 billion copies of this book could be stored in an area of the cerebral cortex the size of a grain of sand, there is pretty much space for unknown programs running in the background, possibly with programming and instructions from wherever and whomever.
Because we don´t understand, we should treat the body as good as possible with a diet of things and thoughts of which we know that they are not harmful
Like all of Bryson´s books, it an entertaining and great read, integrating history, medical science and vivid examples that stay in mind and easily find a way to a long term memory whose functioning we don´t understand to associate it with a brain we know nothing about and a mind that,... well, you get the meaning.
It´s better and more informative than biology education and in my imagination I see books like this in a close future with much more data, pictures, animations, links of different grade of difficulty for each kind of reader, VR, AR and the integration of the reading audience, probably with a kinda collective reading live streams while using different kinds of technologies or just old school reading.
A wiki walk can be as refreshing to the mind as a walk through nature in this completely overrated real-life outside books:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Science...
Tropes show how literature is conceived and which mixture of elements makes works and genres unique:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.ph...
August 19, 2023
Humans are strange and wonderful and yet really really odd. The collection of atoms known as us, a space-ton of DNA, an ecosystem of bacteria, bags of bones and sacks of guts. We are quite interesting although sometimes weirdly senselessly puzzling.
Bryson takes us on anatomical tour of the body, system by system, dropping sexy names like Pacinian corpuscles and Islets of Langerhans along the way while also giving a bit of history of medicine and medical discoveries (Typhoid Mary and discovery of antibiotics and insulin are a must, and my sheer horror at finally learning why “lithotomy” position which I’ve blissfully said countless times is actually called that, and not to forget Phineas Gage and his frontal lobe injury and the absolute horror of lobotomies and the sheer idiocy of bleeding people to cure all ailments 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️) and ultimately arrives at dangers of over-caloried sedentary lifestyle unsuited for the bodies evolved for hunter-gatherer needs, overtreated for often little to no benefit.
It’s fun and easy and accessible, and full of tongue-in-cheek humor because we are all made a bit funny (and because without humor you might as well pick up a stuffy anatomy textbook - but don’t let it be Gray’s since Gray was a petty jerk who went to some lengths to keep “his” book from being Gray and Carter’s Anatomy) and countless digressions and detours which I found quite entertaining as this audio book took me through sedentary commute to and from work (unhealthy) and nice walks in lovely summer weather (a healthier choice). Not to mention taking on a few myths and misconceptions about the body that have been around long enough to feel true - and yet they aren’t (take that, eight glasses of water a day or using 10% of the brain and similar silliness).
The information may be familiar, but the anecdotes are not always so (and even when they are, Bryson’s delivery still freshens them a bit) and therefore the entertainment value holds. Yes, it’s simplified and sometimes some accuracy may be questioned, but for a popular medicine book it actually fares quite alright.
Oh yeah, and you can build your own Benedict Cumberbatch for about $150K, give or take a few pennies. Looking for a blueprint now…
4 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
“The great paradox of the brain is that everything you know about the world is provided to you by an organ that has itself never seen that world. The brain exists in silence and darkness, like a dungeoned prisoner. It has no pain receptors, literally no feelings. It has never felt warm sunshine or a soft breeze. To your brain, the world is just a stream of electrical pulses, like taps of Morse code. And out of this bare and neutral information it creates for you—quite literally creates—a vibrant, three-dimensional, sensually engaging universe. Your brain is you. Everything else is just plumbing and scaffolding.”
Bryson takes us on anatomical tour of the body, system by system, dropping sexy names like Pacinian corpuscles and Islets of Langerhans along the way while also giving a bit of history of medicine and medical discoveries (Typhoid Mary and discovery of antibiotics and insulin are a must, and my sheer horror at finally learning why “lithotomy” position which I’ve blissfully said countless times is actually called that, and not to forget Phineas Gage and his frontal lobe injury and the absolute horror of lobotomies and the sheer idiocy of bleeding people to cure all ailments 🤦♀️🤦♀️🤦♀️) and ultimately arrives at dangers of over-caloried sedentary lifestyle unsuited for the bodies evolved for hunter-gatherer needs, overtreated for often little to no benefit.
“We live in an age in which we are killed, more often than not, by lifestyle. We are in effect choosing how we shall die, albeit without much reflection or insight.”
It’s fun and easy and accessible, and full of tongue-in-cheek humor because we are all made a bit funny (and because without humor you might as well pick up a stuffy anatomy textbook - but don’t let it be Gray’s since Gray was a petty jerk who went to some lengths to keep “his” book from being Gray and Carter’s Anatomy) and countless digressions and detours which I found quite entertaining as this audio book took me through sedentary commute to and from work (unhealthy) and nice walks in lovely summer weather (a healthier choice). Not to mention taking on a few myths and misconceptions about the body that have been around long enough to feel true - and yet they aren’t (take that, eight glasses of water a day or using 10% of the brain and similar silliness).
The information may be familiar, but the anecdotes are not always so (and even when they are, Bryson’s delivery still freshens them a bit) and therefore the entertainment value holds. Yes, it’s simplified and sometimes some accuracy may be questioned, but for a popular medicine book it actually fares quite alright.
Oh yeah, and you can build your own Benedict Cumberbatch for about $150K, give or take a few pennies. Looking for a blueprint now…
“And that’s you gone. But it was good while it lasted, wasn’t it?”
4 stars.
——————
Also posted on my blog.
November 6, 2019
How to make a human body:
Blend together the right amount of each of 59 elements, at a cost of US$151,578.46 according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.
~Or~
If you don't have that kind of money lying about, you can also do it the old-fashioned way that involves heterosexual sex. I'm not here to judge your methods; make a human whichever way you please. What I am here to do is tell you that Bill Bryson has done it again! He has written yet another brilliant and vastly interesting book, this time about the human body. Whether you want to know about bones or skin or digestion, muscles or brains or bacteria, you'll find it in this book. I don't even know where to begin in telling you about the contents. Whilst some things I already knew and thus this was a refresher, there were even more that I didn't know and thus made my brain very happy. There are just so many interesting facts wrapped up in this book. A random few from my highlights:
•"You have a meter of [DNA] packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto."
•We shed over a million flakes of skin every hour, leaving behind about a pound of dust every year. (Easy way to rid yourself of a pound, but for some reason I've never seen it in a diet book.)
•If you could ice skate on cartilage, you would go 16 times as fast as on ice, due to the smoothness of cartilage.
•"In the second or so since you started this sentence, your body has made a million red blood cells." (and used a dozen muscles just to read these words)
•"The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth."
•"Every gram of feces you produce contains 40 billion bacteria and 100 million archaea." (Now that's something you can impress your co-workers with at your Christmas party!)
•The "the death rate for infectious diseases has been climbing and is back to the level of about forty years ago." This is due to bacteria evolving resistance to our antibiotics, partly because of the copious amounts of antibiotics that are fed to livestock (a good reason to cut out meat and dairy!) and the over-prescription of antibiotics, especially for illnesses that are not helped by them (please stop asking your doctor for antibiotics for colds!).
The award for my favourite tidbit of information in this book goes to:
•All of your skin colour is in "a sliver of skin about a millimeter thick".
Did you get that?? ALL of the pigment in your skin is in a sliver so thin that you can see through it! "That’s all that race is—a sliver of epidermis." For this we have enslaved millions of people, killed, hated, treated unfairly, imprisoned. For a translucent sliver of skin. Stupid reason if you ask me, especially when you consider that if you go back far enough, every single person on earth has ancestors who came from Africa. We ALL had black ancestors. We ALL came from Africa. The original skin colour of homo sapiens was dark, so stop already. Stop hating on people over a sliver of skin. If you have "white" skin, it's due to a gene mutation, a freak gene that happened to get passed on because our ancestors needed Vitamin D after they left Africa. Not because you are somehow superior to people who have more melanin than you. Got that?
Those are just a few of the many things I highlighted in this book (it's best to have a Kindle copy if you don't like marking up paper pages). If you enjoy learning new things, if you like to know what makes you you, or if you have an extra $151,578.46 on hand and want to know the ingredients required to create a human body, this is the book for you!
Blend together the right amount of each of 59 elements, at a cost of US$151,578.46 according to the Royal Society of Chemistry.
~Or~
If you don't have that kind of money lying about, you can also do it the old-fashioned way that involves heterosexual sex. I'm not here to judge your methods; make a human whichever way you please. What I am here to do is tell you that Bill Bryson has done it again! He has written yet another brilliant and vastly interesting book, this time about the human body. Whether you want to know about bones or skin or digestion, muscles or brains or bacteria, you'll find it in this book. I don't even know where to begin in telling you about the contents. Whilst some things I already knew and thus this was a refresher, there were even more that I didn't know and thus made my brain very happy. There are just so many interesting facts wrapped up in this book. A random few from my highlights:
•"You have a meter of [DNA] packed into every cell, and so many cells that if you formed all the DNA in your body into a single strand, it would stretch ten billion miles, to beyond Pluto."
•We shed over a million flakes of skin every hour, leaving behind about a pound of dust every year. (Easy way to rid yourself of a pound, but for some reason I've never seen it in a diet book.)
•If you could ice skate on cartilage, you would go 16 times as fast as on ice, due to the smoothness of cartilage.
•"In the second or so since you started this sentence, your body has made a million red blood cells." (and used a dozen muscles just to read these words)
•"The length of all your blood vessels would take you two and a half times around Earth."
•"Every gram of feces you produce contains 40 billion bacteria and 100 million archaea." (Now that's something you can impress your co-workers with at your Christmas party!)
•The "the death rate for infectious diseases has been climbing and is back to the level of about forty years ago." This is due to bacteria evolving resistance to our antibiotics, partly because of the copious amounts of antibiotics that are fed to livestock (a good reason to cut out meat and dairy!) and the over-prescription of antibiotics, especially for illnesses that are not helped by them (please stop asking your doctor for antibiotics for colds!).
The award for my favourite tidbit of information in this book goes to:
•All of your skin colour is in "a sliver of skin about a millimeter thick".
Did you get that?? ALL of the pigment in your skin is in a sliver so thin that you can see through it! "That’s all that race is—a sliver of epidermis." For this we have enslaved millions of people, killed, hated, treated unfairly, imprisoned. For a translucent sliver of skin. Stupid reason if you ask me, especially when you consider that if you go back far enough, every single person on earth has ancestors who came from Africa. We ALL had black ancestors. We ALL came from Africa. The original skin colour of homo sapiens was dark, so stop already. Stop hating on people over a sliver of skin. If you have "white" skin, it's due to a gene mutation, a freak gene that happened to get passed on because our ancestors needed Vitamin D after they left Africa. Not because you are somehow superior to people who have more melanin than you. Got that?
Those are just a few of the many things I highlighted in this book (it's best to have a Kindle copy if you don't like marking up paper pages). If you enjoy learning new things, if you like to know what makes you you, or if you have an extra $151,578.46 on hand and want to know the ingredients required to create a human body, this is the book for you!
October 30, 2019
I like Bryson, his books are often amusing and informative. He has a good eye for details that will keep the reader engaged or outraged or just smile. This is a tour of the human body, but it includes stories and asides about people associated with the discovery of various diseases or a cure or a system in the body. Some books on this topic can get a bit carried away with long names for parts that involve endless Latin or Greek. A nice thing he does here when he does give these is to say what the words mean in English, often interesting enough in itself, and to say why the person naming it that might have thought that was a good idea.
I didn't realise that the X-chromosome was called that because the person who discovered it didn’t know what it did – and so, like ‘planet X’, the letter was chosen due to this mystery rather than for the chromosome’s shape. And the Y-chromosome was likewise named following on from X in the alphabet.
You come away from this thinking that a lot of people are basically bastards. I won’t spoil the stories, but the person who took credit for Streptomycin fits this category particularly nicely.
This is a quick read and an interesting one. Particularly good is the last chapter – you know, we are all going to die sooner or later and so death often sharpens our interest. I’ve become fascinated by the idea that no one is allowed to die of ‘old age’ any more. You have to have died of something, but as Bryson says, getting old generally involves multiple things going wrong with you – and so picking one generally ignores the significant contribution one or other of the things you were suffering from inevitably played in your demise. Perhaps saying ‘he died of old age’ as the cause of death would be in fact be more accurate. Some of the things people were allowed to die of in the past seem so much better than heart disease or cancer - like ennui, for example. "I think he died mostly of listlessness..." As I said recently to a friend of Facebook – the category of deaths I would choose for myself would be ‘peacefully and in his sleep’.
I didn't realise that the X-chromosome was called that because the person who discovered it didn’t know what it did – and so, like ‘planet X’, the letter was chosen due to this mystery rather than for the chromosome’s shape. And the Y-chromosome was likewise named following on from X in the alphabet.
You come away from this thinking that a lot of people are basically bastards. I won’t spoil the stories, but the person who took credit for Streptomycin fits this category particularly nicely.
This is a quick read and an interesting one. Particularly good is the last chapter – you know, we are all going to die sooner or later and so death often sharpens our interest. I’ve become fascinated by the idea that no one is allowed to die of ‘old age’ any more. You have to have died of something, but as Bryson says, getting old generally involves multiple things going wrong with you – and so picking one generally ignores the significant contribution one or other of the things you were suffering from inevitably played in your demise. Perhaps saying ‘he died of old age’ as the cause of death would be in fact be more accurate. Some of the things people were allowed to die of in the past seem so much better than heart disease or cancer - like ennui, for example. "I think he died mostly of listlessness..." As I said recently to a friend of Facebook – the category of deaths I would choose for myself would be ‘peacefully and in his sleep’.
July 28, 2022
A book that tells our body in layman's terms. The author makes it simple to read and understand this book.
I like these words:
“Exercise regularly. Eat sensibly. Die anyway.”
Anyway, I agree that quality of life is the priority, hopefully, most of the time we are living happily and healthy.
I recommend you to read this book so that we know more about our bodies and the functionality of most of our body organs.
We should keep and maintain our bodies healthy always.
I like these words:
“Exercise regularly. Eat sensibly. Die anyway.”
Anyway, I agree that quality of life is the priority, hopefully, most of the time we are living happily and healthy.
I recommend you to read this book so that we know more about our bodies and the functionality of most of our body organs.
We should keep and maintain our bodies healthy always.
June 22, 2020
I read this off and on for over a week, I think reading it straight through would not have left me time to ponder the information and possibly would have been a case of too much at one time. Our bodies, many systems and other developments of which I knew little all in one book. I actually own a copy because this is another that I feel deserves more than read. Or at least to have as a reference.
There is a huge amount of research that went into this book. Bryson is good and picking out information and identifying unsung, unknown heroes. As informative and as I found it, it seems Bryson has traded his trademark sit for some gross examples. Thankfully, I have never encountered these relatively rare conditions. Shuddered at all the diseases, viruses we don't get, there were quite a few. Our body is quite a compact and intricate mechanism. It's a wonder that more things don't go wrong.
I still have two unread by this author that I'm saving for a book drought, along with books from a few other favored author. This is an author loved by many, and he explains our bodies in an easy to understand fashion. Though I did miss the humor , of which there was some, but not as many instances as in previous books. Definitely worth reading, regardless.
There is a huge amount of research that went into this book. Bryson is good and picking out information and identifying unsung, unknown heroes. As informative and as I found it, it seems Bryson has traded his trademark sit for some gross examples. Thankfully, I have never encountered these relatively rare conditions. Shuddered at all the diseases, viruses we don't get, there were quite a few. Our body is quite a compact and intricate mechanism. It's a wonder that more things don't go wrong.
I still have two unread by this author that I'm saving for a book drought, along with books from a few other favored author. This is an author loved by many, and he explains our bodies in an easy to understand fashion. Though I did miss the humor , of which there was some, but not as many instances as in previous books. Definitely worth reading, regardless.
Shelved as 'don-t-count'
December 8, 2019Well, if the dude can't get the difference between a feeding tube and a breathing tube coming out of someone's nose, I'm not sure how accurate his guide is going to be. Add in problems explaining kidney failure, gram staining and smallpox vaccines, and I think this is a solid 'miss.'
Most telling phrase from the review: "Recommended 'Not for the science, which can be found in a more detailed and accurate form elsewhere, but for the view, a sweep of landscape with endless little tragicomedies playing out within. "
--Dr. A. Zuger
https://undark.org/2019/12/06/quirky-...
Most telling phrase from the review: "Recommended 'Not for the science, which can be found in a more detailed and accurate form elsewhere, but for the view, a sweep of landscape with endless little tragicomedies playing out within. "
--Dr. A. Zuger
https://undark.org/2019/12/06/quirky-...
July 18, 2019
Be a bar trivia champion!
Want to dominate any biology questions at bar trivia?
The Body: A Guide for Occupants has you covered! For those of us who haven't had a biology class since we fulfilled some course requirement ages ago, Bryson gives an excellent overview of what doctors and scientists know about all our different body parts and bodily functions.
This book does for biology what books like Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or A People's History of the United States have done for history; it updates and corrects some common misconceptions that may have been passed on to us at one stage or another.
Bryson's dry wit will come across even more clearly when this is eventually made into an audiobook.
While reading, I imagined Alton Brown reading the text in the same manner he talks to the audience in Good Eats. Bill Nye would be a great narrator, too!
It's clear that The Body is aimed at a general audience. (Readers who specialize in the biological sciences might want more detail than this book provides.)
One caveat, particularly for Goodreads reviewers--more than our fair share of us have had frustrating or scary "adventures" through the medical system. Since Bryson spends a surprising amount of time discussing the things doctors *don't* know, this aspect of the text could be unsettling.
Four stars for the print version--and if the audiobook is available when you're making your purchasing decision, I would definitely give this a listen.
Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for my DRC of this book, which will be available for purchase on October 15th.
Want to dominate any biology questions at bar trivia?
The Body: A Guide for Occupants has you covered! For those of us who haven't had a biology class since we fulfilled some course requirement ages ago, Bryson gives an excellent overview of what doctors and scientists know about all our different body parts and bodily functions.
This book does for biology what books like Lies My Teacher Told Me: Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong or A People's History of the United States have done for history; it updates and corrects some common misconceptions that may have been passed on to us at one stage or another.
Bryson's dry wit will come across even more clearly when this is eventually made into an audiobook.
While reading, I imagined Alton Brown reading the text in the same manner he talks to the audience in Good Eats. Bill Nye would be a great narrator, too!
It's clear that The Body is aimed at a general audience. (Readers who specialize in the biological sciences might want more detail than this book provides.)
One caveat, particularly for Goodreads reviewers--more than our fair share of us have had frustrating or scary "adventures" through the medical system. Since Bryson spends a surprising amount of time discussing the things doctors *don't* know, this aspect of the text could be unsettling.
Four stars for the print version--and if the audiobook is available when you're making your purchasing decision, I would definitely give this a listen.
Thanks to Doubleday and NetGalley for my DRC of this book, which will be available for purchase on October 15th.
June 7, 2020
People who should read this: those who really, really enjoy book reports. People who should absolutely not read this: trans people, people with chronic pain, fat people, anyone with a degree in any aspect of biology, anyone who reads more than one popular science book a year.
The thing is, there are basically three ways you can go with a book like this. There’s the complete and in-depth approach, which is absolutey ruled out here; you can’t cover the human body completely in four years of medical school, never mind in a single book. Then there’s the fun facts approach, which Mary Roach has absolutely perfected; you give a brief overview and then you delve into interesting and possibly amusing things your reader probably doesn’t know. That’s where I thought this was going. And then there’s the massively oversimplified, somewhat dull book report, and that’s where this unfortunately ended up. This reads like Bryson read approximately 400 books, summarized each one in a single page, and then added an introduction and a conclusion.
And that’s a problem. The reason each of those books was written was that their topics could not be adequately covered in a page. So every time I happened upon an area about which I already knew some things — or when I’d read the same book Bryson had for that particular bit — I found myself hissing, “But you’re MISSING THE POINT” or “But that’s — that’s so superficial it’s actually inaccurate” or just “Seriously? Seriously??”
I had particular concerns about his discussions of sex and sex chromosomes, which was so simplified and bad that it pretty much went directly to a TERF place. (The problems start with him saying everyone has two sex chromosomes, and that if you have XX you are always female and if you have XY you are always male, and then they sort of go on from there. Biology is more complicated than your fifth-grade-level overview suggests.) He also manages a neatly internally contradictory discussion of the Death Fat that spans over multiple chapters. (Especially enjoyed him explaining in one chapter some of the reasons humans are fatter today than previously, only to explain in another chapter that we all just eat too much and don’t exercise enough. Also there’s a good bit where he explains that fat is definitely killing everyone early, only to point out a bit later that some of the fattest populations on the planet are also the longest-lived. And so on.) There’s also a fun spot where he describes Alexis St. Martin, who was an intensively mistreated victim of constant unethical experimentation by a physician, as “not the most cooperative of subjects.” There’s a lot of stuff like that, that Bryson lightly glosses over and really, really should not.
When the book’s not enraging, it’s just dull. Bryson mostly elides his own narrative voice, which is his main strength as a writer, in favor of pretending to be an authority, so we get an endless dull recitation of facts that many readers already know. (And many of which we learned from more engaging books than this one.)
This book left me sad and frustrated and took me so long to slog through it messed up my holds at the library. A solid loser, all the way around.
The thing is, there are basically three ways you can go with a book like this. There’s the complete and in-depth approach, which is absolutey ruled out here; you can’t cover the human body completely in four years of medical school, never mind in a single book. Then there’s the fun facts approach, which Mary Roach has absolutely perfected; you give a brief overview and then you delve into interesting and possibly amusing things your reader probably doesn’t know. That’s where I thought this was going. And then there’s the massively oversimplified, somewhat dull book report, and that’s where this unfortunately ended up. This reads like Bryson read approximately 400 books, summarized each one in a single page, and then added an introduction and a conclusion.
And that’s a problem. The reason each of those books was written was that their topics could not be adequately covered in a page. So every time I happened upon an area about which I already knew some things — or when I’d read the same book Bryson had for that particular bit — I found myself hissing, “But you’re MISSING THE POINT” or “But that’s — that’s so superficial it’s actually inaccurate” or just “Seriously? Seriously??”
I had particular concerns about his discussions of sex and sex chromosomes, which was so simplified and bad that it pretty much went directly to a TERF place. (The problems start with him saying everyone has two sex chromosomes, and that if you have XX you are always female and if you have XY you are always male, and then they sort of go on from there. Biology is more complicated than your fifth-grade-level overview suggests.) He also manages a neatly internally contradictory discussion of the Death Fat that spans over multiple chapters. (Especially enjoyed him explaining in one chapter some of the reasons humans are fatter today than previously, only to explain in another chapter that we all just eat too much and don’t exercise enough. Also there’s a good bit where he explains that fat is definitely killing everyone early, only to point out a bit later that some of the fattest populations on the planet are also the longest-lived. And so on.) There’s also a fun spot where he describes Alexis St. Martin, who was an intensively mistreated victim of constant unethical experimentation by a physician, as “not the most cooperative of subjects.” There’s a lot of stuff like that, that Bryson lightly glosses over and really, really should not.
When the book’s not enraging, it’s just dull. Bryson mostly elides his own narrative voice, which is his main strength as a writer, in favor of pretending to be an authority, so we get an endless dull recitation of facts that many readers already know. (And many of which we learned from more engaging books than this one.)
This book left me sad and frustrated and took me so long to slog through it messed up my holds at the library. A solid loser, all the way around.
November 23, 2019
Until now, I only knew Bill Bryson for his snarky travelogues. My buddy-reader, however, informed me that his non-fiction book was very good indeed. Besides, many biology books suffer from the fact that their authors are great scientists but horrible writers. So I wanted to read something that had the potential to be entertaining as well as educational.
The book is divided into these chapters:
And yes, we did get a little bit of humour, but that wasn't because Bryson made fun of certain things, but was very good at pointing out the hilarity of history and us silly homo sapiens.
Bryson decided to explain anatomy to the reader as well as giving historical and practical context.
We thus hear of the abominable Typhoid Mary, a women who, at one point, found out she was one of the rare carriers of typhoid without showing any symptoms, but decided to still work in kitchens (against a promise she had made to the authorities) and didn't even bother to wash her hands before preparing meals, thus spreading the disease until she was finally put under house arrest.
Or Nicholas Alkemade, who served in WW2 and jumped out of his plane (his parachute had burnt to cinders and he preferred not to burn to death), survived falling 5500 metres into a pile of snow (after having been slowed down by some pine trees) and suffering only a sprained leg. After the war had ended, he worked in a chemical plant where, while removing chlorine gas-generating liquid from a sump, he received a severe electric shock from the equipment he was using. His gas mask became dislodged and he began breathing in the poisonous gas. After 15 minutes, his appeals for aid were finally answered and he was dragged to safety, nearly asphyxiated by the fumes. Not long after, a siphoning pipe burst, spraying Alkemade’s face and arms with industrial sulphuric acid. With astounding presence of mind, he dived head-first into a nearby drum of limewash, thereby neutralising the acid and escaping with only 1st-degree-burns. He returned to work, but was pinned beneath an almost 3m long steel door runner that fell from its mountings as he passed by, escaping - somehow - with only minor bruising. However, after this, even he came to his senses and decided to no longer tempt fate. He thus became a furniture salesman, dying peacefully in June 1987.
Just two examples of how remarkable and resilient the human body can be (though Mary, in my opinion, was mostly an example of being sick of mind). There are others, of course, such as people being trapped in frozen lakes or extremely cold weather, who are afterwards successfully (slowly) warmed up and who survived (babies even).
The book is full of other fascinating facts as well. Many of us know, for example, that damages to our frontal lobes result in personality changes, which was the reason lobotomy became popular at one point in human history (Rosemary Kennedy was lobotomized because her father considered her too willful, something Bryson mentions in this book, too).
Did you also know that it's 400 times more likely that a teenager is in an accident if said teenager is accompanied by another teenager?! And this isn't just limited to car accidents.
Or did you know that we always say "our 5 senses" but that there are many more? Like the sense that tells us if we're lying down or standing upright even when our eyes are closed? It's called proprioception (our sense of where we are in relation to the space around us).
Or did you know how many things we still cannot explain? One such thing are emotional responses like crying when sad - it has no physiological benefit AND is the same response as for joy so why are we doing it?
Science, it's history, trials and errors but also impressive feats from hundreds of years ago, groundbreaking discoveries (the most well-known example being penicillin), modern appliances and procedures but also problems that will become more dangerous in the near future ... I was delighted how Bryson presented it all comprehensibly and explained it in a way every layman can understand, often giving examples from every-day occurrences, always showing just how much he is fascinated by the subject(s) himself.
A wonderful look at an important and thrilling subject (us) by a seriously talented author - just don't be prissy about digestion or our insides. ;P
The book is divided into these chapters:
And yes, we did get a little bit of humour, but that wasn't because Bryson made fun of certain things, but was very good at pointing out the hilarity of history and us silly homo sapiens.
Bryson decided to explain anatomy to the reader as well as giving historical and practical context.
We thus hear of the abominable Typhoid Mary, a women who, at one point, found out she was one of the rare carriers of typhoid without showing any symptoms, but decided to still work in kitchens (against a promise she had made to the authorities) and didn't even bother to wash her hands before preparing meals, thus spreading the disease until she was finally put under house arrest.
Or Nicholas Alkemade, who served in WW2 and jumped out of his plane (his parachute had burnt to cinders and he preferred not to burn to death), survived falling 5500 metres into a pile of snow (after having been slowed down by some pine trees) and suffering only a sprained leg. After the war had ended, he worked in a chemical plant where, while removing chlorine gas-generating liquid from a sump, he received a severe electric shock from the equipment he was using. His gas mask became dislodged and he began breathing in the poisonous gas. After 15 minutes, his appeals for aid were finally answered and he was dragged to safety, nearly asphyxiated by the fumes. Not long after, a siphoning pipe burst, spraying Alkemade’s face and arms with industrial sulphuric acid. With astounding presence of mind, he dived head-first into a nearby drum of limewash, thereby neutralising the acid and escaping with only 1st-degree-burns. He returned to work, but was pinned beneath an almost 3m long steel door runner that fell from its mountings as he passed by, escaping - somehow - with only minor bruising. However, after this, even he came to his senses and decided to no longer tempt fate. He thus became a furniture salesman, dying peacefully in June 1987.
Just two examples of how remarkable and resilient the human body can be (though Mary, in my opinion, was mostly an example of being sick of mind). There are others, of course, such as people being trapped in frozen lakes or extremely cold weather, who are afterwards successfully (slowly) warmed up and who survived (babies even).
The book is full of other fascinating facts as well. Many of us know, for example, that damages to our frontal lobes result in personality changes, which was the reason lobotomy became popular at one point in human history (Rosemary Kennedy was lobotomized because her father considered her too willful, something Bryson mentions in this book, too).
Did you also know that it's 400 times more likely that a teenager is in an accident if said teenager is accompanied by another teenager?! And this isn't just limited to car accidents.
Or did you know that we always say "our 5 senses" but that there are many more? Like the sense that tells us if we're lying down or standing upright even when our eyes are closed? It's called proprioception (our sense of where we are in relation to the space around us).
Or did you know how many things we still cannot explain? One such thing are emotional responses like crying when sad - it has no physiological benefit AND is the same response as for joy so why are we doing it?
Science, it's history, trials and errors but also impressive feats from hundreds of years ago, groundbreaking discoveries (the most well-known example being penicillin), modern appliances and procedures but also problems that will become more dangerous in the near future ... I was delighted how Bryson presented it all comprehensibly and explained it in a way every layman can understand, often giving examples from every-day occurrences, always showing just how much he is fascinated by the subject(s) himself.
A wonderful look at an important and thrilling subject (us) by a seriously talented author - just don't be prissy about digestion or our insides. ;P
November 25, 2019
For all of you other cyborgs and pure artificial intelligences out there, I should mention that this is a rather interesting primer on regular meat-sacks. It even has the distinction of not being science fiction at all.
But as the title suggests, outright occupancy usually comes with a rental charge. The bill always comes due.
I've read a few Brysons before... and my favorite has got to be A Short History of Nearly Everything. This one, from a regular knowledge-gathering stand, comes in as a tight second. The travelogues are fun and often funny, but Short History is pretty comprehensive and rather more funny. This one, however, was not very funny at all.
That's okay. Very little about our bodies, aside from sex and farts, is funny.
Bryson DOES, however, accomplish a lot, go over a LOT of ground. Pretty cool, in fact.
Do I recommend reading this? Absolutely. Everyone ought to have a primer on themselves. The benefit here is much more than meets the eye, though. So many new discoveries and outright debunking of myths have made it in this text. Recent ones, too.
You know that leaky faucet and the clog in the pipes? Yep. We really need to talk to the landlord.
But as the title suggests, outright occupancy usually comes with a rental charge. The bill always comes due.
I've read a few Brysons before... and my favorite has got to be A Short History of Nearly Everything. This one, from a regular knowledge-gathering stand, comes in as a tight second. The travelogues are fun and often funny, but Short History is pretty comprehensive and rather more funny. This one, however, was not very funny at all.
That's okay. Very little about our bodies, aside from sex and farts, is funny.
Bryson DOES, however, accomplish a lot, go over a LOT of ground. Pretty cool, in fact.
Do I recommend reading this? Absolutely. Everyone ought to have a primer on themselves. The benefit here is much more than meets the eye, though. So many new discoveries and outright debunking of myths have made it in this text. Recent ones, too.
You know that leaky faucet and the clog in the pipes? Yep. We really need to talk to the landlord.
April 21, 2020
The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson is a well-researched user’s manual for anyone interested in how our bodies function. And, of course, we also have the opportunity to enjoy the Bryson wit. This is a field trip through the human body and I was astounded at the level of research needed to write such a book. And I admit there was so much I did not know about the body and how it is built to repair itself. This is an informative guide as well as a source of humour, now and again. Read it for the pure pleasure of enjoying one more Bryson book. Highly recommended.
August 25, 2019
I either laughed, shook my head in wonder, or did both on every page. This is Bryson at his best, and it should be handed out at birth.
February 26, 2020
Bryson is a wonderful travel guide, and this time around he takes us through an enjoyable tour of the human body. The book is surprisingly detailed, for a popular-science book. Bryson exhibits his usual knack for the extraordinary and unusual, but despite veering close to it at times, he avoids the pitfall of making this book just a tour of the oddities of the human body.
Bryson takes just enough such detours to keep us amused, but just like a good tour guide ensures that we are adequately educated as well. The best thing about Bryson, as best exhibited in A Short History of Nearly Everything, is his knack to make everything he touches so memorable. I am sure if a quiz was added after each chapter, most of his readers would fare very well in them. Did you know it takes more time for food to move through a woman's digestive system, than a man's? Who would've thought to include that in an anatomy book?
However, is this the best book to pick up if you are interested in reading about the Human Body? It might be the most fun book, but I am sure even Bryson would recommend Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body over his own book if you could read just one anatomy book. After all, he refers to Lieberman so often that it sometimes feels like this whole book is nothing but a detailed review of Lieberman's magnum opus. If you can spare the time for two, by all means, get both.
Towards the end, Bryson comes to the real point of why we are reading the book - how to keep ourselves healthy. He takes us through a tour of nutrition science, exercise science and even of mortality. In the end, Bryson leaves us with the message that it is not that difficult to live a good life - you just have to take good care of your most precious resource - your Body.
Bryson takes just enough such detours to keep us amused, but just like a good tour guide ensures that we are adequately educated as well. The best thing about Bryson, as best exhibited in A Short History of Nearly Everything, is his knack to make everything he touches so memorable. I am sure if a quiz was added after each chapter, most of his readers would fare very well in them. Did you know it takes more time for food to move through a woman's digestive system, than a man's? Who would've thought to include that in an anatomy book?
However, is this the best book to pick up if you are interested in reading about the Human Body? It might be the most fun book, but I am sure even Bryson would recommend Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body over his own book if you could read just one anatomy book. After all, he refers to Lieberman so often that it sometimes feels like this whole book is nothing but a detailed review of Lieberman's magnum opus. If you can spare the time for two, by all means, get both.
Towards the end, Bryson comes to the real point of why we are reading the book - how to keep ourselves healthy. He takes us through a tour of nutrition science, exercise science and even of mortality. In the end, Bryson leaves us with the message that it is not that difficult to live a good life - you just have to take good care of your most precious resource - your Body.
May 9, 2020
A truly amazing compendium on the human body aka "a warm wobble of flesh!" Truly engaging and enlightening. Occasionally I wanted to fast forward to avoid the details, but mainly I was truly engaged, appalled or enthralled!
My personal favorite of Bill Bryson's anecdotal stories:
The emergency appendectomy on a US submarine during WWII. The ship's pharmacist assistant was ordered to operate without any knowledge or equipment, as he as was the senior medical personnel on board. This is a little mind-boggling to me, as I would expect that there would be a trained medical doctor on board at the very least. Anyway, the pharmacist assistant successfully anesthetized the patient by guessing at the quantity of anesthesia to administer. Then, he successfully performed the appendectomy "wearing a tea strainer lined with gauze as a surgery mask and guided by little more than a first aid manual." Truly amazing!
Surprising fact, which had somehow passed me by: women in labor today have the same pain relief options as their great grandmothers.
Conclusions:
1. We could avoid a lot of diseases by living more sensibly. LOL!
2. We have been successful in extending life, but not in improving the quality of life.
4/29/20 Update: Reading this for a second time with my hubby. Bill Bryson's matter of factness and humor make for a perfect listening experience during this stay-at-home time.
My personal favorite of Bill Bryson's anecdotal stories:
The emergency appendectomy on a US submarine during WWII. The ship's pharmacist assistant was ordered to operate without any knowledge or equipment, as he as was the senior medical personnel on board. This is a little mind-boggling to me, as I would expect that there would be a trained medical doctor on board at the very least. Anyway, the pharmacist assistant successfully anesthetized the patient by guessing at the quantity of anesthesia to administer. Then, he successfully performed the appendectomy "wearing a tea strainer lined with gauze as a surgery mask and guided by little more than a first aid manual." Truly amazing!
Surprising fact, which had somehow passed me by: women in labor today have the same pain relief options as their great grandmothers.
Conclusions:
1. We could avoid a lot of diseases by living more sensibly. LOL!
2. We have been successful in extending life, but not in improving the quality of life.
4/29/20 Update: Reading this for a second time with my hubby. Bill Bryson's matter of factness and humor make for a perfect listening experience during this stay-at-home time.
January 9, 2020
This book was given to me as a Christmas present, and it was a great gift. As a fan of Bryson, I was surprised that I had not even heard of his new work of popular science. I am glad that it came to my attention, then, since this was my favorite Bryson book since A Short History of Nearly Everything. Structured as a tour of the human body, the book made me feel right at home.
No matter what the subject, Bryson’s style is consistent: snappy prose, engaging anecdotes, and fun facts, all tied together with a lot of curiosity and humor. At its worst, this can make for some superficial books—a meandering array of factoids with little structure—which in my experience plagues his history writing. But science seems to bring out the best in Bryson. Here, the writing is disciplined and controlled. He clearly did a great deal of research and organized his facts with care. And Bryson has a rare talent for research. You would think that, in our media-saturated age, most of the great stories and characters from history would be known. But somehow Bryson is always able to uncover an unsung hero with an eccentric personality. The history of science seems particularly rich in this.
Bryson not only unearths unsung heroes, but surprising information. Bryson is a fun fact factory. Arguably, fun facts are the very definition of superficial knowledge; but Bryson’s curiosities are irresistible. There were so many things about the body—about digestion, sleep cycles, anatomy, disease—that I did not know, and so many things that surprised me. For example, I learned that our eyes do not only have rods and cones, but photoreceptive ganglion cells; these do not contribute to vision in any way, but tell us when it is light or dark. This is why some blind people instinctually know if it is day or night, or even if the light is on or off.
Bryson’s style is also well-suited to popular science. His jokes, comments, and asides can be distracting in other contexts; but when reporting potentially dry scientific information, the humor helps. And it must be said that Bryson’s two biggest preoccupations—things we do not know, and things that can kill us (or ideally both)—have ample material in a book about the human body. Indeed, this book gave me a bit of death anxiety, since Bryson dwells on all of the things that can go seriously wrong and how little we know about the why. The scariest thing, for me, was the section on antibiotics. The rate at which bacteria adapt to antibiotics is far outpacing the rate at which we are discovering new medicines. (And our flagrant overuse of antibiotics is certainly not helping.) If we do not somehow reverse this trend, we can have a real crisis in the near future.
If the book has any takeaway, it is that lifestyle is important. Exercises is tremendously beneficial; and inactivity is likewise lethal. A good diet makes a big difference, too, as does avoiding obviously harmful activities like smoking and excessive drinking. Our bad habits in the United States are partially why we lag behind other developed nations in life expectancy. As Bryson also points out, our health system is not particularly good, either, despite the enormous costs involved (several times the prices in other countries). Indeed, the American health system is not only lagging behind other countries, but is actively creating problems. The most obvious example of this is the opioid epidemic, which is largely caused by overprescribing pain medication. And the reason that these medications are only overprescribed in America, it seems, is the unsavory relationship between doctors and drug companies.
As you can see, there is a great deal of interest in these pages—from the history of science, to the development of modern medicine, to the science of anatomy and physiology—none of it dense, dull, or otherwise difficult, but rather witty, charming, and altogether fun to read. I recommend it.
No matter what the subject, Bryson’s style is consistent: snappy prose, engaging anecdotes, and fun facts, all tied together with a lot of curiosity and humor. At its worst, this can make for some superficial books—a meandering array of factoids with little structure—which in my experience plagues his history writing. But science seems to bring out the best in Bryson. Here, the writing is disciplined and controlled. He clearly did a great deal of research and organized his facts with care. And Bryson has a rare talent for research. You would think that, in our media-saturated age, most of the great stories and characters from history would be known. But somehow Bryson is always able to uncover an unsung hero with an eccentric personality. The history of science seems particularly rich in this.
Bryson not only unearths unsung heroes, but surprising information. Bryson is a fun fact factory. Arguably, fun facts are the very definition of superficial knowledge; but Bryson’s curiosities are irresistible. There were so many things about the body—about digestion, sleep cycles, anatomy, disease—that I did not know, and so many things that surprised me. For example, I learned that our eyes do not only have rods and cones, but photoreceptive ganglion cells; these do not contribute to vision in any way, but tell us when it is light or dark. This is why some blind people instinctually know if it is day or night, or even if the light is on or off.
Bryson’s style is also well-suited to popular science. His jokes, comments, and asides can be distracting in other contexts; but when reporting potentially dry scientific information, the humor helps. And it must be said that Bryson’s two biggest preoccupations—things we do not know, and things that can kill us (or ideally both)—have ample material in a book about the human body. Indeed, this book gave me a bit of death anxiety, since Bryson dwells on all of the things that can go seriously wrong and how little we know about the why. The scariest thing, for me, was the section on antibiotics. The rate at which bacteria adapt to antibiotics is far outpacing the rate at which we are discovering new medicines. (And our flagrant overuse of antibiotics is certainly not helping.) If we do not somehow reverse this trend, we can have a real crisis in the near future.
If the book has any takeaway, it is that lifestyle is important. Exercises is tremendously beneficial; and inactivity is likewise lethal. A good diet makes a big difference, too, as does avoiding obviously harmful activities like smoking and excessive drinking. Our bad habits in the United States are partially why we lag behind other developed nations in life expectancy. As Bryson also points out, our health system is not particularly good, either, despite the enormous costs involved (several times the prices in other countries). Indeed, the American health system is not only lagging behind other countries, but is actively creating problems. The most obvious example of this is the opioid epidemic, which is largely caused by overprescribing pain medication. And the reason that these medications are only overprescribed in America, it seems, is the unsavory relationship between doctors and drug companies.
As you can see, there is a great deal of interest in these pages—from the history of science, to the development of modern medicine, to the science of anatomy and physiology—none of it dense, dull, or otherwise difficult, but rather witty, charming, and altogether fun to read. I recommend it.
December 22, 2019
3.5 stars
I am joining a book club; unusual for me because I am not a hugely social animal. It is based at the university where I work for one day a week and it meets a lunch time, once every two months. This is the book for January; it’s not something I would have read in normal circumstances.
Bryson employs his usual wry and laconic style and applies it to the human body. This isn’t a medical text book, but it is detailed and covers pretty much what you would expect. Bryson does cover the history and development of medicines, surgery and approaches to the body. He also uncovers some of the lesser known pioneers of medicine, those history has forgotten. Bryson tells their stories and uncovers their foibles in an entertaining way.
The book is full of facts, it must be a dream for someone who goes to quizzes a lot, although there are some interesting ones as well. Bryson estimates that austerity in Britain has led to about 120 000 preventable deaths. He attributes the fact that Americans die at a younger age the Europeans to lifestyle. Bryson also takes a more global perspective and looks at the battle with infectious diseases and our overuse of antibiotics which has led to antibiotic resistant bugs. Bryson takes a look at the opioid crisis and at some of the medical techniques that did not stand the test of time; lobotomy for example.
There are lots of interesting facts, many obscure diseases, lesser known medical operatives and trillions of cells. It is informative and Bryson is, as ever, a great raconteur. However I was left asking WHY? What’s it all for, interesting though it is? I’ll keep you posted on the book club!
I am joining a book club; unusual for me because I am not a hugely social animal. It is based at the university where I work for one day a week and it meets a lunch time, once every two months. This is the book for January; it’s not something I would have read in normal circumstances.
Bryson employs his usual wry and laconic style and applies it to the human body. This isn’t a medical text book, but it is detailed and covers pretty much what you would expect. Bryson does cover the history and development of medicines, surgery and approaches to the body. He also uncovers some of the lesser known pioneers of medicine, those history has forgotten. Bryson tells their stories and uncovers their foibles in an entertaining way.
The book is full of facts, it must be a dream for someone who goes to quizzes a lot, although there are some interesting ones as well. Bryson estimates that austerity in Britain has led to about 120 000 preventable deaths. He attributes the fact that Americans die at a younger age the Europeans to lifestyle. Bryson also takes a more global perspective and looks at the battle with infectious diseases and our overuse of antibiotics which has led to antibiotic resistant bugs. Bryson takes a look at the opioid crisis and at some of the medical techniques that did not stand the test of time; lobotomy for example.
There are lots of interesting facts, many obscure diseases, lesser known medical operatives and trillions of cells. It is informative and Bryson is, as ever, a great raconteur. However I was left asking WHY? What’s it all for, interesting though it is? I’ll keep you posted on the book club!
June 9, 2020
Typical Bryson: erudite, compassionate, hilarious.
June 8, 2020
Ако сте позагубили усещането си за чудо, прочетете тази книга. От нея ще научите отново да се удивлявате на това, което представляват собствените ни тела.
Вътрешното ни устройство и процесите, които протичат в нас, може да изглеждат закономерни и дори банални, но все още не сме стигнали до това ниво, в което телата ни да спрат да сащисват дори учените, занимаващи се с тях.
В “Тялото” Бил Брайсън разказва по-интересно от всякога. Общите черти на нашето устройство са предадени сбито и максимално достъпно, като се редуват с медицински куриози, много от които откровено плашещи.
От тази книга научаваме за някои наглед необясними взаимовръзки – защо потта ни е направила умни същества, защо всеки от нас усеща света по различен начин с обонянието си, а също и кои са най-застрашаващите болести за съвременния човек и защо е така.
“Тялото” ни кара да се вглеждаме в себе си. Докато я четях, на съответните места въртях палци, кляках, разгъвах лакти, запушвах нос – за да се уверя в простичките и гениални механизми, с които като по чудо сме снабдени. Замислих се и колко и какво ям (не че не го мисля така или иначе), колко се движа, колко спя.
Интересни ми бяха сравненията между здравните системи на развитите демокрации и стряскащото несъответствие между огромните суми, които САЩ наливат в здравеопазване и печалния здравен статус на американците. Връзката между богатство и дълголетие едва ли би учудила някого, но тук тя е потвърдена, макар и да не е обяснена.
Брайсън, както винаги, разказва увлекателно и компетентно, но и с ентусиазма на човек, който на 66 годишна възраст продължава да изпитва възхитата на ученик, пред който са разкрили големите тайни на Природата. Знанието не е притъпило способността му да се удивлява на неща, за които повечето от нас или нямат представа, или приемат за даденост.
Нашите тела са съвършени регулатори, устроени така, че да не се унищожават лесно, дори когато имат за стопани такива безотговорни същества като нас, които всячески ги товарят с големи количества вредности и токсини. Цяло чудо е, че функционираме при толкова много усилия да саботираме здравето си и при наличието на всевъзможни патогени навсякъде около нас. Дължим огромна благодарност на нашите тела!
Две главни достойнства на “Тялото” – първо, имаме факти от историята на медицината и пионерите-откриватели, без които днешното ни дълголетие и здравен статус щяха да са невъзможни. Отрезвяващо е да си припомним, че само две поколения назад хората са имали не само по-ниска очаквана продължителност на живота, заради високата детска смъртност, но са и умирали от неща, които днес не са непосредствена колективна заплаха за човека. Второ, книгата е много съвременна. Брайсън ни дава както статичната картина на телата ни, така и моментна снимка на това къде се намират нещата като лечение на различни заболявания и мнения на водещи световни авторитети.
При целия този научен напредък има и толкова много неизвестни – много често се обяснява как протича една или друга реакция на организмите ни, като причината завършва с лаконичното “все още не знаем защо е така.”
Да разкажеш за сложното по интересен и достъпен начин – две качества, които фатално отсъстват от българските учебници, се е удало чудесно на Брайсън. Ставам банална с тези български учебници, но се питам колко ли хора са загубени за науката в ранна възраст, само защото образованието успешно успява да ги отврати от нея.
“Всъщност, биологически погледнато, расата не съществува. Нищо, свързано с цвета на кожата, чертите на лицето, типа коса или костна структура, не е определящо качество за човека.”
“Според британския Нобелов лауреат Мах Перутц, през XX век ваксините вероятно са спасили повече хора дори от антибиотиците.”
Вътрешното ни устройство и процесите, които протичат в нас, може да изглеждат закономерни и дори банални, но все още не сме стигнали до това ниво, в което телата ни да спрат да сащисват дори учените, занимаващи се с тях.
В “Тялото” Бил Брайсън разказва по-интересно от всякога. Общите черти на нашето устройство са предадени сбито и максимално достъпно, като се редуват с медицински куриози, много от които откровено плашещи.
От тази книга научаваме за някои наглед необясними взаимовръзки – защо потта ни е направила умни същества, защо всеки от нас усеща света по различен начин с обонянието си, а също и кои са най-застрашаващите болести за съвременния човек и защо е така.
“Тялото” ни кара да се вглеждаме в себе си. Докато я четях, на съответните места въртях палци, кляках, разгъвах лакти, запушвах нос – за да се уверя в простичките и гениални механизми, с които като по чудо сме снабдени. Замислих се и колко и какво ям (не че не го мисля така или иначе), колко се движа, колко спя.
Интересни ми бяха сравненията между здравните системи на развитите демокрации и стряскащото несъответствие между огромните суми, които САЩ наливат в здравеопазване и печалния здравен статус на американците. Връзката между богатство и дълголетие едва ли би учудила някого, но тук тя е потвърдена, макар и да не е обяснена.
Брайсън, както винаги, разказва увлекателно и компетентно, но и с ентусиазма на човек, който на 66 годишна възраст продължава да изпитва възхитата на ученик, пред който са разкрили големите тайни на Природата. Знанието не е притъпило способността му да се удивлява на неща, за които повечето от нас или нямат представа, или приемат за даденост.
Нашите тела са съвършени регулатори, устроени така, че да не се унищожават лесно, дори когато имат за стопани такива безотговорни същества като нас, които всячески ги товарят с големи количества вредности и токсини. Цяло чудо е, че функционираме при толкова много усилия да саботираме здравето си и при наличието на всевъзможни патогени навсякъде около нас. Дължим огромна благодарност на нашите тела!
Две главни достойнства на “Тялото” – първо, имаме факти от историята на медицината и пионерите-откриватели, без които днешното ни дълголетие и здравен статус щяха да са невъзможни. Отрезвяващо е да си припомним, че само две поколения назад хората са имали не само по-ниска очаквана продължителност на живота, заради високата детска смъртност, но са и умирали от неща, които днес не са непосредствена колективна заплаха за човека. Второ, книгата е много съвременна. Брайсън ни дава както статичната картина на телата ни, така и моментна снимка на това къде се намират нещата като лечение на различни заболявания и мнения на водещи световни авторитети.
При целия този научен напредък има и толкова много неизвестни – много често се обяснява как протича една или друга реакция на организмите ни, като причината завършва с лаконичното “все още не знаем защо е така.”
Да разкажеш за сложното по интересен и достъпен начин – две качества, които фатално отсъстват от българските учебници, се е удало чудесно на Брайсън. Ставам банална с тези български учебници, но се питам колко ли хора са загубени за науката в ранна възраст, само защото образованието успешно успява да ги отврати от нея.
“Всъщност, биологически погледнато, расата не съществува. Нищо, свързано с цвета на кожата, чертите на лицето, типа коса или костна структура, не е определящо качество за човека.”
“Според британския Нобелов лауреат Мах Перутц, през XX век ваксините вероятно са спасили повече хора дори от антибиотиците.”
April 28, 2020
Exercise regularly.
Eat sensibly.
Die anyway.
This anonymous quote is the heading of the last chapter of this book, "The End". I have to admit I would have been bored if I'd tried to read this straight through but tackling a few pages every night at bedtime turned out to be fascinating and educating. There is a lot of trivia about not just the body itself and how it works, but also about scientists and doctors and their discoveries, sometimes accidental, the sometimes wrong conclusions they came to, and health care systems all over the world.
My conclusions at the end of this book:
The body is an incredible machine that does everything it can to keep us alive, most of the time without us even knowing about it. In the end, it really is a crap shoot, so enjoy it while you can. Or as Bill Bryson says at the end of the last chapter that describes what happens at death - "And that's you gone. But it was good while it lasted, wasn't it?"
Carpe Diem!
Eat sensibly.
Die anyway.
This anonymous quote is the heading of the last chapter of this book, "The End". I have to admit I would have been bored if I'd tried to read this straight through but tackling a few pages every night at bedtime turned out to be fascinating and educating. There is a lot of trivia about not just the body itself and how it works, but also about scientists and doctors and their discoveries, sometimes accidental, the sometimes wrong conclusions they came to, and health care systems all over the world.
My conclusions at the end of this book:
The body is an incredible machine that does everything it can to keep us alive, most of the time without us even knowing about it. In the end, it really is a crap shoot, so enjoy it while you can. Or as Bill Bryson says at the end of the last chapter that describes what happens at death - "And that's you gone. But it was good while it lasted, wasn't it?"
Carpe Diem!
March 23, 2021
We are darn well amazing. We've all heard that rather gooey truth "We are all made of stardust..." but read this book, and you will learn even more extraordinary truths. We are phenomenal creatures. If you aren't filled with a fantastic sense of wonder whilst reading this then pinch yourself hard, because something is missing.
As well as conveying a huge bundle of facts in a fascinating fashion, Bryson also makes his readers laugh. I love this guy's sense of humour. That eased off a bit towards the end as he started talking about the body in old age. I possess a 69-year-old body, and I quaked a bit when I learnt the degree to which us older folk are more prone to problems. I presumed that I knew that already, but to see it so clearly laid out in print is daunting. For instance "An eighty-year-old person is a thousand times more likely than a teenager to develop cancer." Whaaaaaat? Although he doesn't dwell overly on the negatives of being elderly, the book nevertheless brings home to you with a thump some of the downsides of ageing.
Here are a few of the topics discussed, just to give you a flavour of the book.....
RUNNING
SWEATING
ANTIBIOTICS
VITAMINS
TASTE
APPENDIX
TALKING
STROKES
BLEEDING PEOPLE
AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
SMOKING
BACTERIA
As with Bryson's 'A Short History of Almost Everything' I'm amazed by the breadth of research and interviewing he must have done for this book. Add to this his hallmark of being wonderfully readable - and you have a great book. Highly recommended.
Later Add: Dr Abigail Zuger, who writes for The New York Times says that the book has several errors.
(Link to this got from Carol.'s review)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
As well as conveying a huge bundle of facts in a fascinating fashion, Bryson also makes his readers laugh. I love this guy's sense of humour. That eased off a bit towards the end as he started talking about the body in old age. I possess a 69-year-old body, and I quaked a bit when I learnt the degree to which us older folk are more prone to problems. I presumed that I knew that already, but to see it so clearly laid out in print is daunting. For instance "An eighty-year-old person is a thousand times more likely than a teenager to develop cancer." Whaaaaaat? Although he doesn't dwell overly on the negatives of being elderly, the book nevertheless brings home to you with a thump some of the downsides of ageing.
Here are a few of the topics discussed, just to give you a flavour of the book.....
RUNNING
SWEATING
ANTIBIOTICS
VITAMINS
TASTE
APPENDIX
TALKING
STROKES
BLEEDING PEOPLE
AUTOIMMUNE DISEASES
SMOKING
BACTERIA
As with Bryson's 'A Short History of Almost Everything' I'm amazed by the breadth of research and interviewing he must have done for this book. Add to this his hallmark of being wonderfully readable - and you have a great book. Highly recommended.
Later Add: Dr Abigail Zuger, who writes for The New York Times says that the book has several errors.
(Link to this got from Carol.'s review)
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
December 10, 2021
Like one of those kids' trivia books—all your intestines uncoiled would stretch thus far, your capillaries laid end-to-end would reach to so-and-so and back—but with a bright and clarion call to wonder that stirred a sense of mystery and pride within the very fibers of my being (of which I consequently now have a better understanding).
3.5 stars out of 5. There is a touch too much repetition for a book of this length to justify, and some of the factoids present a gloomy outlook for modern humankind. Still, these are exciting topics and it's energetic writing. Even if you read a lot of this sort of thing, Bryson presents quite a lot of current findings so you may still learn something new.
3.5 stars out of 5. There is a touch too much repetition for a book of this length to justify, and some of the factoids present a gloomy outlook for modern humankind. Still, these are exciting topics and it's energetic writing. Even if you read a lot of this sort of thing, Bryson presents quite a lot of current findings so you may still learn something new.
December 3, 2019
Shelve this next to Being Mortal by Atul Gawande in a collection of books that everyone should read – even if you’re a squeamish hypochondriac or you don’t normally choose nonfiction. Bryson is back on form with his latest, indulging his layman’s curiosity about how the body works. Now, I read a LOT of medical memoirs and popular science. I’ve read entire books about organ transplantation, sleep, dementia, the blood, the heart, evolutionary defects, surgery and so on, but in many cases these go into more detail than I really need and I can find my interest waning. That never happens here. Without ever being superficial or patronizing his readers, the author gives a comprehensive introduction to every organ and body system, moving briskly between engaging anecdotes from medical history and encapsulated research on everything from gut microbes to cancer treatment.
Bryson delights in our physical oddities, and his sense of wonder is infectious. How fantastic that there is such a thing as the Belly Button Biodiversity Project (run by North Carolina State University) that has discovered 1,458 species in bacteria new to science in people’s navels! How astounding that a man hiccupped for 67 years straight! As you’ve likely gathered from his other work, he loves a good statistic, and while this book is full of numbers and percentages, they are accessible rather than obfuscating, and will make you shake your head in amazement.
This is a congenial and persistently cheerful book, even when discussing illness, scientists whose work was overlooked, and the inevitability of death. What I found most sobering was the observation that, having conquered many diseases and extended our life expectancy, we are now overwhelmingly killed by our lifestyle, mostly a poor diet of processed and sugary foods and a lack of exercise – “we are born with the bodies of hunter–gatherers but pass our lives as couch potatoes.”
A few specific things I learned:
I’ve had a nasty cold for the past two weeks, and this book saved me from making a wasted purchase – I had just put Vitamin C on the shopping list when I read that taking large doses of Vitamin C is ineffectual. That it can cure a cold is an urban myth. Immediately, I crossed it off the list and ate an orange instead.
It takes 72 hours for food to move through a woman’s digestive system and be excreted. I’d always assumed that what I was getting rid of was my last meal – so that if I had a bout of diarrhea I could blame it on what I’d just eaten. I’m now curious to know how it works for flatulence: I’m sure that I get instant flatulence after eating chickpeas, lentils, eggs or cheese. But is that just my imagination? Maybe I’m actually observing the effects of a meal from a few days ago.
A neat thing to know about cold weather; it makes total sense, but had never occurred to me. “Incidentally, the reason your nose runs in chilly weather is the same reason your bathroom windows run with water in chilly weather. In the case of your nose, warm air from your lungs meets cold air coming into the nostrils and condenses, resulting in a drip.”
Favorite passages:
“Your body is a universe of mystery. A very large part of what happens on and within it happens for reasons that we don’t know – very often, no doubt, because there are no reasons. Evolution is an accidental process, after all.”
“Your brain is you. Everything else is just plumbing and scaffolding.”
Bryson delights in our physical oddities, and his sense of wonder is infectious. How fantastic that there is such a thing as the Belly Button Biodiversity Project (run by North Carolina State University) that has discovered 1,458 species in bacteria new to science in people’s navels! How astounding that a man hiccupped for 67 years straight! As you’ve likely gathered from his other work, he loves a good statistic, and while this book is full of numbers and percentages, they are accessible rather than obfuscating, and will make you shake your head in amazement.
“A study in Switzerland found that flu virus can survive on a banknote for two and a half weeks if it is accompanied by a microdot of snot.”
“If you’ve ever wondered why no one wants to kiss you first thing in the morning, it is possibly because your exhalations may contain up to 150 different chemical compounds” including “methyl mercaptan (which smells like very old cabbage), hydrogen sulphide (like rotten eggs), dimethyl sulphide (slimy seaweed)”, etc.
“Even with the advantage of clothing, shelter and boundless ingenuity, humans can manage to live on only about 12 per cent of Earth’s land area”
“Altogether there are about seven thousand rare diseases – so many that about one person in seventeen in the developed world has one, which isn’t very rare at all. But, sadly, so long as a disease affects only a small number of people it is unlikely to get much research attention. For 90 per cent of rare diseases there are no effective treatments at all.”
This is a congenial and persistently cheerful book, even when discussing illness, scientists whose work was overlooked, and the inevitability of death. What I found most sobering was the observation that, having conquered many diseases and extended our life expectancy, we are now overwhelmingly killed by our lifestyle, mostly a poor diet of processed and sugary foods and a lack of exercise – “we are born with the bodies of hunter–gatherers but pass our lives as couch potatoes.”
A few specific things I learned:
I’ve had a nasty cold for the past two weeks, and this book saved me from making a wasted purchase – I had just put Vitamin C on the shopping list when I read that taking large doses of Vitamin C is ineffectual. That it can cure a cold is an urban myth. Immediately, I crossed it off the list and ate an orange instead.
It takes 72 hours for food to move through a woman’s digestive system and be excreted. I’d always assumed that what I was getting rid of was my last meal – so that if I had a bout of diarrhea I could blame it on what I’d just eaten. I’m now curious to know how it works for flatulence: I’m sure that I get instant flatulence after eating chickpeas, lentils, eggs or cheese. But is that just my imagination? Maybe I’m actually observing the effects of a meal from a few days ago.
A neat thing to know about cold weather; it makes total sense, but had never occurred to me. “Incidentally, the reason your nose runs in chilly weather is the same reason your bathroom windows run with water in chilly weather. In the case of your nose, warm air from your lungs meets cold air coming into the nostrils and condenses, resulting in a drip.”
Favorite passages:
“Your body is a universe of mystery. A very large part of what happens on and within it happens for reasons that we don’t know – very often, no doubt, because there are no reasons. Evolution is an accidental process, after all.”
“Your brain is you. Everything else is just plumbing and scaffolding.”
December 19, 2020
4 ☆ characterized in turns by droll wit and stomach - churning descriptions
And with this elegant turn of sentiment, Bryson embarked on a journey of the human body, from top to bottom and from outside in. Despite its subtitle and seeming breadth, it appeared to me to offer limited value as a user's personal handbook. The bulk of The Body instead was evenly divided between being an idiosyncratic assortment of medical characters and scientists and a brief introductory course to anatomy and physiology.
In regards to its utility as an user's handbook, I can easily summarize its conventional advice:
- exercise more; don't be so sedentary
- get sufficient sleep
- eat more plant-based foods instead of processed, refined, or sugary foods
- don't smoke or do drugs and drink alcohol moderately
Bryson's deadpan wit existed side by side with some very gross descriptions of past medical research. So beware if you're squeamish or planning to eat. Bryson mentioned many scientists in the context of Nobel prize winners, both the worthy and the slighted, those robbed by unscrupulous bosses or by ignorant skepticism. Many of these stories were quite old, but they made me realize that our medical advances have been relatively recent, within the past 60 years or so.
Some examples of medical quackery (through modern eyes) included brain surgery with kitchenware (icepicks) and the injection of all sorts of liquids and multiple animals' blood directly into human subjects' veins. One stomach- churning account was how in the 1820s the surgeon W. Beaumont tested his subject's partially digested food by tasting it himself to confirm the presence of hydrochloric acid in the human gastrointestinal system. The other example was a very graphic testimony in 1810 by novelist F. Burney undergoing a mastectomy while awake and without anesthesia.
The Body succinctly described body parts and their functions and many esoteric bits of knowledge. One myth he quickly dispelled was the self help notion that we only use 10 percent of our brain thus leaving 90 percent as an untapped massive potential. Alas, no, all of our brains are utilized. Bryson was quite clear, however, that many aspects still pose mysteries - from why we hiccup, yawn, or even sleep.
The most fascinating chapter to me was about the brain. Humans can truly be idiosyncratic as we don't all see or smell the world the same way. How can we when our individual collection of odorant receptors will lead to differing experiences of smell. And then because of the distance between our optic nerves and brains, the brain forecasts 1/5th of a second in advance.
So couple that with the following, and the profound insight explains why race is purely a social construct.
We need to overcome our knee-jerk mental reactions. This alone is sufficient for me to round up my initial 3.5+ star rating to 4 stars.
Our bodies are a universe of 37.2 trillion cells operating in more or less perfect concert more or less all of the time. ... The miracle of human life is not that we are endowed with some frailties but we are not swamped by them. ...
You truly are a wonder. But then so, it must be said, is an earthworm.
And with this elegant turn of sentiment, Bryson embarked on a journey of the human body, from top to bottom and from outside in. Despite its subtitle and seeming breadth, it appeared to me to offer limited value as a user's personal handbook. The bulk of The Body instead was evenly divided between being an idiosyncratic assortment of medical characters and scientists and a brief introductory course to anatomy and physiology.
In regards to its utility as an user's handbook, I can easily summarize its conventional advice:
- exercise more; don't be so sedentary
- get sufficient sleep
- eat more plant-based foods instead of processed, refined, or sugary foods
- don't smoke or do drugs and drink alcohol moderately
As with so much in life, getting the balances right is delicate business.
Suicide by lifestyles takes ages.
Bryson's deadpan wit existed side by side with some very gross descriptions of past medical research. So beware if you're squeamish or planning to eat. Bryson mentioned many scientists in the context of Nobel prize winners, both the worthy and the slighted, those robbed by unscrupulous bosses or by ignorant skepticism. Many of these stories were quite old, but they made me realize that our medical advances have been relatively recent, within the past 60 years or so.
Some examples of medical quackery (through modern eyes) included brain surgery with kitchenware (icepicks) and the injection of all sorts of liquids and multiple animals' blood directly into human subjects' veins. One stomach- churning account was how in the 1820s the surgeon W. Beaumont tested his subject's partially digested food by tasting it himself to confirm the presence of hydrochloric acid in the human gastrointestinal system. The other example was a very graphic testimony in 1810 by novelist F. Burney undergoing a mastectomy while awake and without anesthesia.
The Body succinctly described body parts and their functions and many esoteric bits of knowledge. One myth he quickly dispelled was the self help notion that we only use 10 percent of our brain thus leaving 90 percent as an untapped massive potential. Alas, no, all of our brains are utilized. Bryson was quite clear, however, that many aspects still pose mysteries - from why we hiccup, yawn, or even sleep.
The most fascinating chapter to me was about the brain. Humans can truly be idiosyncratic as we don't all see or smell the world the same way. How can we when our individual collection of odorant receptors will lead to differing experiences of smell. And then because of the distance between our optic nerves and brains, the brain forecasts 1/5th of a second in advance.
... photons of light have no color, sound waves no sound, olfactory molecules no odors. ...
All the richness of life is created inside your head. What you see is not what is but what your brain tells you it is, and that's not the same thing at all.
... color isn't a fixed reality but a perception.
So couple that with the following, and the profound insight explains why race is purely a social construct.
The paradox of genetics is that we are all very different and yet genetically practically identical. All humans share 99.9 percent of their DNA.
"People act as if skin color is a determinant of character when all it is is a reaction to sunlight. Biologically, there is actually no such thing as race - nothing in terms of skin color, facial features, hair type, bone structure or anything else that is a defining quality among peoples." - Nina Jablonski
We need to overcome our knee-jerk mental reactions. This alone is sufficient for me to round up my initial 3.5+ star rating to 4 stars.
October 12, 2019
Bill Bryson’s trademark humor is evident in this fascinating book that provides detailed descriptions of the body, how things function and history of discovery. A big takeaway is that although there have been great strides in what we know about science and medicine, he makes it clear just how much is still unknown about how and why things work.
This book would be perfect to serve as a primer for a high school health and wellness course. Thanks to Doubleday Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
This book would be perfect to serve as a primer for a high school health and wellness course. Thanks to Doubleday Books for the ARC in exchange for my honest review.
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