Riku Sayuj's Reviews > The Body: A Guide for Occupants

Bryson is a wonderful travel guide, and this time around he takes us through an enjoyable tour of the human body. The book is surprisingly detailed, for a popular-science book. Bryson exhibits his usual knack for the extraordinary and unusual, but despite veering close to it at times, he avoids the pitfall of making this book just a tour of the oddities of the human body.

Bryson takes just enough such detours to keep us amused, but just like a good tour guide ensures that we are adequately educated as well. The best thing about Bryson, as best exhibited in A Short History of Nearly Everything, is his knack to make everything he touches so memorable. I am sure if a quiz was added after each chapter, most of his readers would fare very well in them. Did you know it takes more time for food to move through a woman's digestive system, than a man's? Who would've thought to include that in an anatomy book?

However, is this the best book to pick up if you are interested in reading about the Human Body? It might be the most fun book, but I am sure even Bryson would recommend Daniel Lieberman's The Story of the Human Body over his own book if you could read just one anatomy book. After all, he refers to Lieberman so often that it sometimes feels like this whole book is nothing but a detailed review of Lieberman's magnum opus. If you can spare the time for two, by all means, get both.

Towards the end, Bryson comes to the real point of why we are reading the book - how to keep ourselves healthy. He takes us through a tour of nutrition science, exercise science and even of mortality. In the end, Bryson leaves us with the message that it is not that difficult to live a good life - you just have to take good care of your most precious resource - your Body.