Title: The Body: A Guide for Occupants
Author: Bill Bryson
Genre: Nonfiction, Science
Published: 2019
Pages: 383
Goodreads Rating: 4.31
My Rating: 10/10
“Just sitting quietly, doing nothing at all, your brain churns through more information in thirty seconds than the Hubble Space Telescope has processed in thirty years.”
Bill Bryson once said, “We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it. The idea of the book is simply to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us.”
In The Body, Bryson quite successfully attempts to explore the human body by providing truly astonishing facts about how we function. From the brain to the immune system, he dives into every aspect of the human body and what could go wrong. Throughout the book, you’ll read things that will amaze you, shock you, and disgust you. And you simply won’t be able to put the book down for long. You’ll catch yourself saying to the closest person near you, “Did you know that…?”. Without a doubt, you will learn something new from this book.
What I appreciate about this author is his writing style, level of detail and the amount of research he puts into his books. He leaves no stone unturned in his quest to gather research and knowledge. And before you think that this is some stuffy science book, Bryson adds in his typical dry sense of humor to make this book educational and enjoyable. You can count on Bryson to write in a way that is accessible to anyone and everyone.
If you’re looking to learn something new and you are even slightly interested in how our bodies work, this is the perfect book for you. By the end of The Body, I bet you’ll be looking up other books by Bryson.
Caroline’s Library 