The Body: A Guide for Occupants

4.7 4.7 out of 5 stars | 20,429 ratings

Price: 19.69

Last update: 01-11-2025


About this item

An instant New York Times best seller

Named a best book of the year by The Washington Post

Longlisted for the Pen E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award

"Glorious...You will marvel at the brilliance and vast weirdness of your design." (The Washington Post)

Bill Bryson, best-selling author of A Short History of Nearly Everything, takes us on a head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body. As addictive as it is comprehensive, this is Bryson at his very best, a must-listen owner's manual for everybody.

Bill Bryson once again proves himself to be an incomparable companion 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 Bryson-esque anecdotes, 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 listenable facts and information.


Top reviews from the United States

  • Jeffrey Chang
    5.0 out of 5 stars Cogent, entertaining, informative
    Reviewed in the United States on October 3, 2024
    This is a real pleasant read on the nature of the human body with a touch of humanity in its stories surrounding its discovery. Even though there’s much yet to research and understand, there’s equally enough substance to marvel at what makes us human, blood flesh and bone. Bravo with a tightly packed conceptualization of what goes into our make up as humans. Overall a good read.
  • Jesse Langel
    5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling Account of our Miraculous Life Vehicles
    Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2022
    Be prepared to marvel at the miracles of the human body. This book will amaze and humble you.

    Its subtitle, A Guide for Occupants, sums up the book’s accessibility. The content is understandable and well-crafted. The chapters are short explorations into bodily functions and anatomy, supported by historical backdrops.

    I’m aware of Bill Bryson’s penchant to explain the world’s phenomena: See, A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book, The Body, is also a short history of the brilliant workings of our bodily machinery: its systems, functions, diseases, symptoms, and of course, the big sleep. Each chapter is a mini-course in biology, contextualized by key events in history (i.e. discoveries, surgeries, therapies).

    You’d marinate in this book over time versus absorbing it one sitting. There are too many disparate facts to internalize all at once. You’d “escape into” this book when you’re desirous of the knowledge and insights that should reawaken your curiosity of life as we know it.

    Life can be either blissful or miserable depending on your health. For those who hit the health lottery, life is blissful and energizing. For those who drew the wrong numbers, it can be a grisly nightmare of unrelenting pain. The chapters on pain, disease, and death should rekindle serious gratitude. For example, “every day, it has been estimated, between one and five of your cells turn cancerous, and your immune system captures and kills them.”

    This book is for anybody interested in the human body. I gifted this book to a doctor last year. It could be an entertaining refresher because it is expressed a thriller—not the typical medical treatise. I have read the hard copy and have listened to it on audible. The audible narrator aligns perfectly with the tone of the book.

    15 Interesting facts in the book:

    1. 40% of adult Americans—about 100 million—experience chronic pain at any given time. It affects more people than cancer, heart disease, and diabetes combined.

    2. Pain is mysterious, and we’re not effective at curing it.

    3. Disease outbreaks pop up, disappear, and may then reappear.

    4. The medical profession has produced absolute heroes who invented solutions (i.e. vaccines & therapies) that mitigate a staggering amount of suffering.

    5. The United States has 4% of the world’s population but consumes 80% of its opiates.

    6. There are about 7,000 rare diseases. (1 in 17 people have rare diseases—which does not seem “rare.”).

    7. Our “lifestyle diseases” a/k/a “mismatch diseases” (i.e. heart disease or diabetes caused by indolent or overindulgent lifestyles) have surpassed diseases of infection or genetics.

    8. Medicine has gotten so good at treating the symptoms of lifestyle diseases that we’ve perpetuated their underlying causes.

    9. Antibiotic effectiveness will soon be muted by new strains of bacteria.

    10. 40% of us will discover that we have cancer at some point in our lives. Many, many more of us will have it but die of something else first.

    11. Half of men over 60, and three-quarters of men over 70 will have prostate cancer at death and not even know it. It has been suggested that all men would have prostate cancer if they lived long enough.

    12. Cancer cells do not provoke an inflammatory response, which is why they appear painless and invisible in their early stages.

    13. Cancer is a “price” we pay for evolution. If cells did not mutate, we would not evolve.

    14. Cancer is an “age thing.” For men, between birth and age 40, we have a 1 in 73 chance of getting it. After age 60, our odds skyrocket to 1 in 3 (yikes!).

    15. Middle-aged Americans are twice as likely to die prematurely than those in Sweden, France, Germany, and the UK.

    Happy reading, my fellow knowledge seekers.
    Customer image
    Jesse Langel
    5.0 out of 5 stars A thrilling Account of our Miraculous Life Vehicles
    Reviewed in the United States on April 11, 2022
    Be prepared to marvel at the miracles of the human body. This book will amaze and humble you.

    Its subtitle, A Guide for Occupants, sums up the book’s accessibility. The content is understandable and well-crafted. The chapters are short explorations into bodily functions and anatomy, supported by historical backdrops.

    I’m aware of Bill Bryson’s penchant to explain the world’s phenomena: See, A Short History of Nearly Everything. This book, The Body, is also a short history of the brilliant workings of our bodily machinery: its systems, functions, diseases, symptoms, and of course, the big sleep. Each chapter is a mini-course in biology, contextualized by key events in history (i.e. discoveries, surgeries, therapies).

    You’d marinate in this book over time versus absorbing it one sitting. There are too many disparate facts to internalize all at once. You’d “escape into” this book when you’re desirous of the knowledge and insights that should reawaken your curiosity of life as we know it.

    Life can be either blissful or miserable depending on your health. For those who hit the health lottery, life is blissful and energizing. For those who drew the wrong numbers, it can be a grisly nightmare of unrelenting pain. The chapters on pain, disease, and death should rekindle serious gratitude. For example, “every day, it has been estimated, between one and five of your cells turn cancerous, and your immune system captures and kills them.”

    This book is for anybody interested in the human body. I gifted this book to a doctor last year. It could be an entertaining refresher because it is expressed a thriller—not the typical medical treatise. I have read the hard copy and have listened to it on audible. The audible narrator aligns perfectly with the tone of the book.

    15 Interesting facts in the book:

    1. 40% of adult Americans—about 100 million—experience chronic pain at any given time. It affects more people than cancer, heart disease, and diabetes combined.

    2. Pain is mysterious, and we’re not effective at curing it.

    3. Disease outbreaks pop up, disappear, and may then reappear.

    4. The medical profession has produced absolute heroes who invented solutions (i.e. vaccines & therapies) that mitigate a staggering amount of suffering.

    5. The United States has 4% of the world’s population but consumes 80% of its opiates.

    6. There are about 7,000 rare diseases. (1 in 17 people have rare diseases—which does not seem “rare.”).

    7. Our “lifestyle diseases” a/k/a “mismatch diseases” (i.e. heart disease or diabetes caused by indolent or overindulgent lifestyles) have surpassed diseases of infection or genetics.

    8. Medicine has gotten so good at treating the symptoms of lifestyle diseases that we’ve perpetuated their underlying causes.

    9. Antibiotic effectiveness will soon be muted by new strains of bacteria.

    10. 40% of us will discover that we have cancer at some point in our lives. Many, many more of us will have it but die of something else first.

    11. Half of men over 60, and three-quarters of men over 70 will have prostate cancer at death and not even know it. It has been suggested that all men would have prostate cancer if they lived long enough.

    12. Cancer cells do not provoke an inflammatory response, which is why they appear painless and invisible in their early stages.

    13. Cancer is a “price” we pay for evolution. If cells did not mutate, we would not evolve.

    14. Cancer is an “age thing.” For men, between birth and age 40, we have a 1 in 73 chance of getting it. After age 60, our odds skyrocket to 1 in 3 (yikes!).

    15. Middle-aged Americans are twice as likely to die prematurely than those in Sweden, France, Germany, and the UK.

    Happy reading, my fellow knowledge seekers.
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  • xBryMilx
    4.0 out of 5 stars Good read - in theory
    Reviewed in the United States on June 9, 2021
    This is my second book from Mr. Bryson that I have read. Both were very entertaining. I really enjoyed the side stories that he added to the content that made it all the more interesting. I have saved numerous highlights in this book. Lots of nice interesting facts and tidbits. The one thing that I did not like that is common with many "science" related books is the absence of the word "theory." Regardless of whether you are a believer in intelligent design or in evolution, or an even a combination of the two, all are just theories, or faith as it pertains to intelligent design. It irks me when authors fail to highlight that what they are discussing is theory versus fact. Evolution is a theory, not fact. From there, the reader is free to make their own decision as to what they believe but it is irresponsible to write an entire book with so many references to Evolution without mentioning that it is a theory. While I understand that there is evidence of evolution, there are also a lot of holes in the theory. More recent evidence suggests that Darwin got a lot wrong in his theory. There are a couple of areas in the book where the author even takes some light jabs at intelligent design. There are numerous reasons why people could believe in this Theory well. For example, why is it that a newborn infant has the innate desire and ability to suckle? How would nature or evolution insert such a desire? Did you ever stop to think that if sex did not feel good the entire human race would probably die off? Why did Sex have to feel good? How did nature or evolution know to make it feel good? It would seem to me that both were designed that way for a purpose. There are lots of examples like that but I don't want to bog down this review. I still think that this was a very good book and I enjoyed reading it.

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