The Body
Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable com- panion as he guides us through the human body—how it functions, its remarkable ability to heal itself, and (unfortunately) the ways it can fail. Full of extraordinary facts (your body made a million red blood cells since you started reading this) and irresistible Brysonesque an- ecdotes, The Body will lead you to a deeper understanding of the miracle that is life in general and you in particular. As Bill Bryson writes, "We pass our existence within this wobble of flesh and yet take it almost entirely for granted." The Body will cure that indifference with generous doses of wondrous, compulsively read- able facts and information. As oddictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-read owner's manual for every body.
Stats for nerds
5recommend
11mentions
11people
2019–2026years
45% recommend45% neutral9% critical
Mentions per year
What Hacker News says
- The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
- The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
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The Body - Bill Bryson
The Way of Kings - Sanderson
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- I really enjoyed The Body (and pretty much all Bill Bryson). He has my preferred blend of information and humor.
- Maximum City, a nonfiction book about Mumbai. A good companion to a first time visitor. I believe that an update is coming out soon.
Project Hail Mary, a book about space for engineering nerds.
The Body and At Home. They're books by Bill Bryson. He geeks out about stuff and showers is with fascinating trivia. It's hard to put his books down.
The Right Stuff, a book about how they picked the first astronauts without knowing what the job would even entail. A fascinating look at the psychology of test pilots. Pairs well with the movie First Man.
- This is fascinating and reminds me of one of my favorite medical stories.
The doctor that invented the "blood vessel path to the heart for a catheter" was German. He had the idea to try it out, grabbed a regular catheter, inserted it into a blood vessel in his own arm and pushed it in till he felt it in his heart.
He wanted evidence that he had actually done this so he walked to the X-Ray department (he worked at a hospital) and asked them to get him a chest x-ray.
Wild how medicine has progressed.
(This story is from The Body by Bill Bryson)
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