His storytelling gifts allow him to present remarkably deep information and make it feel like he’s spinning a yarn in a pub. With Bryson, it feels nothing like a text book.

In all other circumstances we’d call this a text book and reading such a thing is reserved as punishment for students.

This is a thick book densely packed with facts about the body. He’s also, at times, extremely funny, though in books of this sort he tends to be more witty rather belly-achingly hilarious. You feel he is as interested in the subject as you are that he marvels at the very things he writes about that he is compelled to write a particular book because it will eat him up if he doesn’t. It is an utterly absorbing book and would be ‘un-put-down-able’ if it were not for the fact that you sometimes just need to step back and marvel at how stunning the human body really is. ‘The Body’ undeniably fits under this latter category. The closest to that was his ‘One Summer 1927’ which I would classify as ‘extremely interesting’, rather than ‘absolutely fascinating’ as I would any of his other books. I’ve read most of his collection over the last 15 years and yet to find one that I could consider a dud. The Independent similarly praised the book for the wide array of dispensable facts contained within the book.You can’t really go wrong with Bill Bryson. plus some anger and life advice – all delivered in the inimitable Bryson style'. The book has received generally positive reviews with The Guardian headlining their review with 'Extraordinary stories about the heart, lungs, genitals. Within each chapter, Bryson describes the function of the relevant biological system, emphasising the history of the scientific developments that led to the current understanding, all with the humour that is characteristic of his writing. After a brief introduction, the book divides itself into several chapters, each of which describes a particular part of the body or, as in the two chapters on diseases, problems that the body can be faced with.

It is Bryson's second book of popular science, with the first being A Short History of Nearly Everything published in 2003. The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a non-fiction book by British-American author Bill Bryson, first published in 2019.

Bill bryson the body review