Listen free for 30 days
-
The Body
- A Guide for Occupants
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 14 hrs and 4 mins
Failed to add items
Add to Cart failed.
Add to Wish List failed.
Remove from wish list failed.
Follow podcast failed
Unfollow podcast failed
Buy Now for $39.48
No default payment method selected.
We are sorry. We are not allowed to sell this product with the selected payment method
You may also enjoy...
-
A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- Written by: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
Written by: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
-
Behave
- The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
- Written by: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom
- Length: 26 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.
-
-
Overall Excellent, But Maybe Overly Broad in Scope
- By J. Horyski on 2019-11-16
Written by: Robert Sapolsky
-
Lifespan
- Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To
- Written by: David A. Sinclair PhD, Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: David A. Sinclair PhD
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an acclaimed Harvard professor and one of Time’s most influential people, this paradigm-shifting audiobook shows how almost everything we think we know about aging is wrong, offers a front-row seat to the amazing global effort to slow, stop, and reverse aging, and calls listeners to consider a future where aging can be treated.
-
-
Starts good
- By Adam Dee on 2019-10-17
Written by: David A. Sinclair PhD, and others
-
At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
-
-
Interesting, I learned a lot
- By Karen on 2018-02-25
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
Made in America
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
-
-
Loved it.
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-06-28
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection
- Divided by a Common Language, Journeys in English and More
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes.
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
A Crack in Creation
- Gene Editing and the Unthinkable Power to Control Evolution
- Written by: Jennifer A. Doudna, Samuel H. Sternberg
- Narrated by: Erin Bennett
- Length: 9 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Not since the atomic bomb has a technology so alarmed its inventors that they warned the world about its use. Not, that is, until the spring of 2015, when biologist Jennifer Doudna called for a worldwide moratorium on the use of the new gene-editing tool CRISPR - a revolutionary new technology that she helped create - to make heritable changes in human embryos.
Written by: Jennifer A. Doudna, and others
-
Behave
- The Biology of Humans at Our Best and Worst
- Written by: Robert Sapolsky
- Narrated by: Michael Goldstrom
- Length: 26 hrs and 27 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From the celebrated neurobiologist and primatologist, a landmark, genre-defining examination of human behavior, both good and bad, and an answer to the question: Why do we do the things we do? Sapolsky's storytelling concept is delightful but it also has a powerful intrinsic logic: He starts by looking at the factors that bear on a person's reaction in the precise moment a behavior occurs, and then hops back in time from there, in stages, ultimately ending up at the deep history of our species and its evolutionary legacy.
-
-
Overall Excellent, But Maybe Overly Broad in Scope
- By J. Horyski on 2019-11-16
Written by: Robert Sapolsky
-
Lifespan
- Why We Age - and Why We Don't Have To
- Written by: David A. Sinclair PhD, Matthew D. LaPlante
- Narrated by: David A. Sinclair PhD
- Length: 11 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
From an acclaimed Harvard professor and one of Time’s most influential people, this paradigm-shifting audiobook shows how almost everything we think we know about aging is wrong, offers a front-row seat to the amazing global effort to slow, stop, and reverse aging, and calls listeners to consider a future where aging can be treated.
-
-
Starts good
- By Adam Dee on 2019-10-17
Written by: David A. Sinclair PhD, and others
-
At Home
- A Short History of Private Life
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 16 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson and his family live in a Victorian parsonage in a part of England where nothing of any great significance has happened since the Romans decamped. Yet one day, he began to consider how very little he knew about the ordinary things of life as he found it in that comfortable home. To remedy this, he formed the idea of journeying about his house from room to room to “write a history of the world without leaving home.”
-
-
Interesting, I learned a lot
- By Karen on 2018-02-25
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
Made in America
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land, explaining how a dusty hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up, as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question, and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.
-
-
Loved it.
- By Amazon Customer on 2019-06-28
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection
- Divided by a Common Language, Journeys in English and More
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 7 hrs and 59 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes.
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
One Summer
- America, 1927
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
One of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country - a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive.
-
-
Excellent
- By BW on 2022-08-10
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
Shakespeare
- The World as Stage
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
-
-
Wonderful
- By PDubya on 2021-05-16
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
The Road to Little Dribbling
- Adventures of an American in Britain
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed—and what hasn’t.
-
-
Not His best work
- By Don on 2020-05-17
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
Neither Here nor There
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 9 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In Neither Here nor There Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia.
-
-
Another funny travel account!
- By William Jones on 2023-05-10
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
The Molecule of More
- How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity - And Will Determine the Fate of the Human Race
- Written by: Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, Michael E. Long
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 8 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
In The Molecule of More: How a Single Chemical in Your Brain Drives Love, Sex, and Creativity—and will Determine the Fate of the Human Race, George Washington University professor and psychiatrist Daniel Z. Lieberman, MD, and Georgetown University lecturer Michael E. Long present a potentially life-changing proposal: Much of human life has an unconsidered component that explains an array of behaviors previously thought to be unrelated, including why winners cheat, why geniuses often suffer with mental illness, why nearly all diets fail, and more.
-
-
Life Changing
- By Chaz on 2020-04-30
Written by: Daniel Z. Lieberman MD, and others
-
Six Easy Pieces
- Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher
- Written by: Richard P. Feynman
- Narrated by: uncredited
- Length: 5 hrs and 19 mins
- Abridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Designed for non-scientists, Six Easy Pieces is an unparalleled introduction to the world of physics by one of the greatest teachers of all time.
-
-
Sound quality is soooooo bad
- By DS on 2021-12-29
Written by: Richard P. Feynman
-
The Lost Continent
- Travels In Small Town America
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.
-
-
Disappointing!
- By Pierre Gauthier on 2021-05-17
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
The Gene
- An Intimate History
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 19 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The extraordinary Siddhartha Mukherjee has written a biography of the gene as deft, brilliant, and illuminating as his extraordinarily successful biography of cancer. Weaving science, social history, and personal narrative to tell us the story of one of the most important conceptual breakthroughs of modern times, Mukherjee animates the quest to understand human heredity and its surprising influence on our lives, personalities, identities, fates, and choices.
-
-
A book to be read, again and again.
- By Rob on 2017-11-04
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
Talking to Strangers
- What We Should Know About the People We Don't Know
- Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Narrated by: Malcolm Gladwell
- Length: 8 hrs and 42 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
How did Fidel Castro fool the CIA for a generation? Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Adolf Hitler? Why are campus sexual assaults on the rise? Do television sitcoms teach us something about the way we relate to each other that isn't true? While tackling these questions, Malcolm Gladwell was not solely writing a book for the page. He was also producing for the ear. In the audiobook version of Talking to Strangers, you’ll hear the voices of people he interviewed - scientists, criminologists, military psychologists.
-
-
zero insight
- By catherine on 2019-10-27
Written by: Malcolm Gladwell
-
The Emperor of All Maladies
- A Biography of Cancer
- Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
- Narrated by: Fred Sanders
- Length: 22 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
The Emperor of All Maladies reveals the many faces of an iconic, shape-shifting disease that is the defining plague of our generation. The story of cancer is a story of human ingenuity, resilience, and perseverance but also of hubris, arrogance, paternalism, and misperception, all leveraged against a disease that, just three decades ago, was thought to be easily vanquished in an all-out "war against cancer".
-
-
A tough one to get through, but super worthy.
- By Dani on 2018-04-07
Written by: Siddhartha Mukherjee
-
The Secret History of Christmas
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 3 hrs and 3 mins
- Original Recording
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Christmas is the single biggest annual event on the planet, a time for merry-making, over-indulgence, peace, goodwill, and the occasional family row. It’s as comfortable and familiar as a pair of old shoes and yet still glittery and exciting. But what do you really know about it? It’s stuffed full of traditions and rituals that most of us have been observing all our lives without having the slightest idea of where they come from.
-
-
Pretty good - Short and Sweet
- By RICHARD E on 2022-11-29
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
Hyperspace
- A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the 10th Dimension
- Written by: Michio Kaku
- Narrated by: Tim Lounibos
- Length: 14 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
Are there other dimensions beyond our own? Is time travel possible? Can we change the past? Are there gateways to parallel universes? All of us have pondered such questions, but there was a time when scientists dismissed these notions as outlandish speculations. Not any more. Today, they are the focus of the most intense scientific activity in recent memory. In Hyperspace, Michio Kaku offers the first book-length tour of the most exciting (and perhaps most bizarre) work in modern physics.
Written by: Michio Kaku
Publisher's Summary
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.
What the critics say
"Bill Bryson is not so much a discoverer of new lands as a charismatic cartographer of existing ones, smartly mapping points of entry into territory that might otherwise remain impenetrable to curious travelers. With light footed prose, The Body winds its way through the dense terrain of anatomy, physiology, and biochemistry....The result is an absorbing catalog of the human body in all its firmness and fatality....The colossal roster of facts on display is dazzling.... Bryson's distinctive voice will likely delight readers eager to go sightseeing around the world they embody." (The American Scholar)
"A delightful tour guide...Bryson's stroll through human anatomy, physiology, evolution, and illness (diabetes, cancer, infections) is instructive, accessible, and entertaining." (Booklist starred review)
Amusingly informative." (Forbes)
More from the same
What listeners say about The Body
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Dr. Gordon K. McIvor
- 2020-02-04
Required reading for the self-aware
We share as humans the fact that we all have the same basic working parts, and just like with machines and objects these parts wear down, get sick and ultimately fail us. This very long but fascinating work will introduce you in detail to every part making up the human body. The last chapters on disease and how we die are awesome and have led me to think a lot more about the miracle of the human body and how it still hides countless mysteries from us.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Happy Goat
- 2020-01-22
Great book, excellent narration
I really enjoy Bill Bryson’s writing and I was sceptical to see his name as the narrator, but wow he does an excellent work of it. I’ve listened to this one twice and really enjoyed it. A couple of sections are not fully explored, but overall it is excellent and I highly recommend it. I’m a stickler for detail and when I’ve checked some of his facts he was mostly right on.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- P. Dyson
- 2020-01-02
Great stories just like Brysons other books
If you like Bryson, you'll like this.
The book seems to endlessly cover just about everything related to the human body. It is at times whimsical, other times quite gory and cringe-worthy, but in a good way. The book kept me captivated and I found so many different interesting topics that made me want to check out in more detail later.
On top of the stories within the book, I find Brysons voice very soothing.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
3 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Lana
- 2022-03-20
Educational and entertaining
This was the perfect educational book for a layman. Very entertaining all throughout and interesting facts I've never heard of
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
2 people found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Anonymous User
- 2021-06-16
Great book to learn
So much fascinating information, and a great performance of the reading. So many aspects of the body are discussed, there’s a lot you can learn. Will be reading through a second time to catch things I missed, and will look for other titles by this author
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- JONAS M.
- 2020-05-17
very interesting
so many great nuggets of information. I love the story lines that go off on s tangent.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- martink
- 2020-05-06
Interesting and engagingly written
Enjoyed it very much - it seems an excellent guide to how your body works, and it's filled with interesting anecdotes about the scientists, doctors and patients who've pushed scientific and medical knowledge forward. It also contains warnings about current and future perils including North Americans' high risk lifestyles and our overuse of antibiotics. Some of his detailed descriptions of medical procedures past and present can be a bit cringe- inducing for those of us with good imaginations. All in all, though this is one of the best Audible investments I've made.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Jmh
- 2020-01-07
Bryson Takes on the Human Body
An excellent study of the history of the human body broken up into thematic sections. He does an excellent job of exploring the limitations of what we know, as well as how much there is still to do in medicine (his section on how the female body has been represented in medicine is excellent). His performance is pure Bryson, and I learned so much. Highly recommended.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Rena
- 2019-12-14
A LOT of information!
So much information that I was getting brain overload!! To get around it, I decided to use the book for fun facts/ trivia. That made it easier on my poor head and I'm enjoying it a lot more.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful
-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
- Amazon Customer
- 2019-11-29
Informative
Struggled to finish, especially last two chapters, a little too morbid. A little too close to home.
Something went wrong. Please try again in a few minutes.
You voted on this review!
You reported this review!
1 person found this helpful