Description

#1 Bestseller in both hardback and paperback: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE
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‘A directory of wonders.’ – The Guardian

‘Jaw-dropping.’ – The Times

‘Classic, wry, gleeful Bryson…an entertaining and absolutely fact-rammed book.’ – The Sunday Times

‘It is a feat of narrative skill to bake so many facts into an entertaining and nutritious book.’ – The Daily Telegraph
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‘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.’

Bill Bryson sets off 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 new book is an instant classic. It will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again.

‘What I learned is that we are infinitely more complex and wondrous, and often more mysterious, than I had ever suspected. There really is no story more amazing than the story of us.’ Bill Bryson

Publisher Review

A directory of wonders. Extraordinary stories about the heart, lungs, genitals ... plus some anger and life advice - all delivered in the inimitable Bryson style -- Gavin Francis * Guardian * Remarkable ... Every page is dense with scientific facts written as vividly as a thriller, as well as answers to conundrums such as why we don't fall out of bed when we are asleep ... It is woven through with the kind of human stories that Bryson has made his trademark. * Mail on Sunday * Readable and useful ... witty, jargon-free prose that glides you through 400 pages. It's fun to read because it's not just comprehensive, but quirky. -- Richard Morrison * The Times * SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019: 'so packed with arresting facts (you eat 60 tons of food in a lifetime) and unlikely anecdotes (such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel's six weeks with a half-sovereign lodged in his throat) that you barely notice the sheer volume of anatomical knowledge you're digesting ... makes complex subjects simple and eminently entertaining.' * Sunday Times * 'It is a feat of narrative skill to bake so many facts into an entertaining and nutritious book..where Byrson really shines is in his imaginative glosses on the facts he has collected.' * The Daily Telegraph *