Editor’s Comment:  Bryson is well known for his variety of interests, from his ambitious “A Short History of Nearly Everything” to a delightful childhood memoir I read called “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”.  “The Body” fascinated me with startling details of how our body works.  Chapters are broken into parts: brain, heart, lungs as well as systems: immune, chemistry and skeleton.  Bryson adds a point of view, such as his concerns over the overuse of antibiotics.  (see excerpt)  I’m recommending this book with only two promises, it’s far more readable than your biology textbook and you will understand a lot more about the only body you’ll ever own when you’re done.

I learned that if you work hard and creatively, you can have just about anything you want, but not everything you want. Maturity is the ability to reject good alternatives in order to pursue even better ones.” -Ray Dalio