The Body
A Guide for Occupants
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Narrated by:
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Bill Bryson
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Written by:
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Bill Bryson
About this listen
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.
©2019 Bill Bryson (P)2019 Random House AudioYou may also enjoy...
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Interesting, I learned a lot
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Overall Excellent, But Maybe Overly Broad in Scope
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Starts good
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One Summer
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listened to this book four times
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Wonderful
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Interesting, I learned a lot
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Behave
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Overall Excellent, But Maybe Overly Broad in Scope
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Lifespan
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Starts good
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Written by: David A. Sinclair PhD, and others
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One Summer
- America, 1927
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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listened to this book four times
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Shakespeare
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Six Easy Pieces
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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.
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Sound quality is soooooo bad
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Interesting, but sound quality not great
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The Secret History of Christmas
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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.
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Pretty good - Short and Sweet
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The Brain
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Locked in the silence and darkness of your skull, your brain fashions the rich narratives of your reality and your identity. Join renowned neuroscientist David Eagleman for a journey into the questions at the mysterious heart of our existence. What is reality? Who are “you”? How do you make decisions? Why does your brain need other people? How is technology poised to change what it means to be human?
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The Molecule of More
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Overall
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Performance
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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.
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Life Changing
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Made in America
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Loved it.
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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
What is the nature of space and time? How do we fit within the universe? How does the universe fit within us? There's no better guide through these mind-expanding questions than acclaimed astrophysicist and best-selling author Neil deGrasse Tyson. But today, few of us have time to contemplate the cosmos. So Tyson brings the universe down to Earth succinctly and clearly, with sparkling wit, in digestible chapters consumable anytime and anywhere in your busy day.
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make the world smart again.
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Dopamine Nation
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
This book is about pleasure. It’s also about pain. Most important, it’s about how to find the delicate balance between the two, and why now more than ever finding balance is essential. We’re living in a time of unprecedented access to high-reward, high-dopamine stimuli: drugs, food, news, gambling, shopping, gaming, texting, sexting, Facebooking, Instagramming, YouTubing, tweeting....
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I listened to this audiobook on 1.4 X speed
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Why We Sleep
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Sleep is one of the most important but least understood aspects of our life, wellness, and longevity. Until very recently, science had no answer to the question of why we sleep, or what good it served, or why we suffer such devastating health consequences when we don't sleep. Compared to the other basic drives in life - eating, drinking, and reproducing - the purpose of sleep remained elusive.
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Would be better as a physical book
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The Story of the Human Body
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
In this landmark book of popular science, Daniel E. Lieberman - chair of the department of human evolutionary biology at Harvard University and a leader in the field - gives us a lucid and engaging account of how the human body evolved over millions of years, even as it shows how the increasing disparity between the jumble of adaptations in our Stone Age bodies and advancements in the modern world is occasioning this paradox: greater longevity but increased chronic disease.
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For all humans
- By Anonymous User on 2022-10-25
Written by: Daniel Lieberman
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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
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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
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Livewired
- The Inside Story of the Ever-Changing Brain
- Written by: David Eagleman
- Narrated by: David Eagleman
- Length: 9 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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The answers to these questions are right behind our eyes. The greatest technology we have ever discovered on our planet is the three-pound organ carried in the vault of the skull. This book is not simply about what the brain is; it is about what it does. The magic of the brain is not found in the parts it’s made of but in the way those parts unceasingly reweave themselves in an electric, living fabric.
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Fascinating!
- By Anonymous User on 2023-04-17
Written by: David Eagleman
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)
What listeners say about The Body
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Anonymous User
- 2021-04-02
Very informative
I've listened to the audio book many times and find that I pick up something new every time.
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-04-12
Worth it.
Just when you thought you knew quite a bit about your body, Bryson makes more interesting.
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- Anonymous User
- 2023-12-17
content and excellent delivery
fascinating, well researched and chock-full of information but delivered in a simply riveting way. captures the reader/ listener
slightly hard to hear (esp on car with other noises).
I turned down the bass and that helped a lot.
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- Anonymous User
- 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
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2 people found this helpful
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- Steve Morgan
- 2023-02-26
Entertaining review of basics
Like most Bryson titles, this offers an entertaining review of the basics. What it lacks in depth and critical appraisal, it (mostly) makes ups for with writing style.
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- Anonymous User
- 2024-11-21
Hard to make a more interesting book about the body
This is a great one. Filled with stories and interesting facts. Could have been more comprehensive but that’s hard to ask from a pop sci book. Also made me scared of some viruses and diseases and could have done without that.
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- Anonymous User
- 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.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-02-25
Love Bill Bryson’s work...
It is obviously the amount of work and research that goes into Bills science books. Love them both and great reads for simpletons like me.
Keep up the good work Bill
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- Anonymous User
- 2020-04-19
Great book. An education.
Very much enjoyed the book. Learned a lot about the body and the part about viruses and diseases was very informative, especially in this time.
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- Jim from Calgary
- 2020-10-02
All the Facts with Fun Perspective & Context
A journey of facts and insights like only Bill Bryson can do. Understanding details about every part of the body in the context of history, science, and the stories behind them. Lots of fun. Start and stop where you want in the book. The book is only 14 hours, but I've had 100's of hours of enjoyment and many more to come!
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