The Body

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

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

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

"Fascinating anatomy/medical lesson for the lay person, but not for the squeamish."

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

"Learned so many obscure factoids that were never taught in medical school. "

"Bill Bryson does it again. This is a fantastic summary of the most complex machine ever built, the human body. Bill does a pretty good job to cover all the corners despite the conciseness of this book. Anyone will be left in awe of this incredibly complex and efficient human body after reading this book with a fresh appreciation, and hopefully an obligation to take better care of it."

"Fire asf tbh"

"Great book, albeit a bit preachy at times. "

"Started reading Sanjay Gupta’s Keep Sharp and YA novel the Grace Year"