The Body: A Guide for Occupants - Bill Bryson (re-read)

This is my first time reading The Body since its initial release. Like all Bryson books, it’s an entertaining, funny read. Bryson’s books generally fall into two categories: travelogues, in which Bryson chronicles his journey through a particular part of the world, and researched books, in which he chooses a subject and explains it in layman’s terms. The Body, as the name suggests, is among the latter.

Bryson’s output has skewed towards research books in his later years, quite possibly because he’s less inclined to take long journeys. He is very good at both, and while the travelogues tend to be funnier (I would count his funniest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, among this group, even though the “travel” is through his own childhood), The Body still includes humour through bizarre anecdotes and clever turns of phrase. The overall content, however, is educational, as Bryson works his way through the human body section by section, branching off near the end into disease and medicine. The final chapter, fittingly enough, deals with death, and the process of dying. It ends a bit abruptly, but then again so does life in a lot of cases, so perhaps that’s fitting in its way.

Bryson peppers his chapters with anecdotes about figures in medicine and biology both famous and obscure, charting medical breakthroughs and quack remedy fads with equal relish. He has always had an ear for bizarre stories and seems to delight in bringing forgotten heroes a bit of posthumous fame.

There isn’t a Bill Bryson book I haven’t read at least once, and nearly all of them I’ve gone through multiple times. It saddens me to hear that he intends for The Body to be his last book, but he’s certainly earned his retirement. Nevertheless, I can’t say I’m not hoping that boredom gets the better of him and he finds his way into a new one at some point.

Note: in preparing the tags for this entry, I discovered I’ve already written about this book once before! Oh well, interesting to capture my views on it a second time.

The Road to Little Dribbling - Bill Bryson

I’ve resumed my rereading of the works of Bill Bryson, first with Made In America: An Informal History of the English Language in the United States, which I didn’y have much to say about other than I liked it, as I do all Bill Bryson books, and then with The Road to Little Dribbling.

Dribbling might be my least favourite of Bryson’s books, which is not to say I don’t like it. he’s funny as ever, and his deft writing is always good company. But it always felt to me arbitrary, and suffers from comparison to the inimitable Notes from a Small Island. The book is indeed, something between a sequel and a reboot of Notes. Written for the 20th anniversary of the previous book, Bryson once again tours his adopted homeland, this time following a route that is obstensibly anchored to the Bryson Line—the longest straight line that can be drawn through Britain without crossing over water—and that starts and ends at its termini, but otherwise ventures more or less wherever he pleases.

Bryson makes an effort not to retread too much old territory, but repeat visits are inevitable, and his opining on the state of modern Britain can feel a bit one note. There was always a tone of cranky old man in Bryson’s writing, even when he was a young man, and this element seems to have gained prominence as he’s aged. That being said, Bryson raises crankiness to an art form, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t enjoy his acerbic takedowns of foolishness.

All told, Dribbling is a Bryson book and as such worth reading. It likely won’t go on my regular rotation alongside his true masterpieces, but I’m happy to have it on hand on my bookshelf.

At Home: A Short History of Private Life - Bill Bryson

I’m on another Bill Bryson kick, and recently reread A Short History of Nearly Everything and A Walk in the Woods as well, but I don’t have much to say about those other than that they’re both great, so I’m going to focus on At Home: A Short History of Private Life.

At Home’s conceit might be the stragest of all of Bryson’s work. It is generally described as a history of domestic life, an encapsulation that is ostensibly accurate, but also a lot tidier and more constrained than the actual work. Essentially, Bryson takes readers on a narrated tour of his home, an 18th century rectory in rural England, and uses each room as a jumping off point to discuss related themes. Some rooms lend themselves to these themes more directly than others—the bathroom leads pretty obviously to sanitation and hygiene—but it is the odder offshoots that are probably the most rewarding. The Hall, for example, seems liek a pretty drab subject for a history, but it is actually among the most fascinating in the book, detailing as it does the rise of the modern house as we now know it. This is because early houses were essentially nothing but halls, with private rooms coming to be alongside a shift in human ideas of domesticity and privacy.

The book can have a bit of an odd sock drawer flavour at times, and Bryson isn’t afraid to go off on tangents, expounding on the lives of dust mites or regailing us with such underestimated household dangers as staircases and paint, but on rereading I was struck by how well the whole thing holds together. As he did later in his work One Summer: America 1927, Bryson weaves together disparate strands into a rich and diverse tapsetry, one that highlights the texture of individual fibres without undercutting the harmony of the whole. His trademar kwit and humour is evident throughout.

Though arguably one of his more forgotten books, At Home is by no means Lesser Bryson. It’s an excellent piece of work, and well worth a read.

One Summer: America, 1927 - Bill Bryson

J’écris ceux mots après d’avoir relu trois livres de Bill Bryson : The Lost Continent, In a Sunburned Country, et One Summer: America, 1927. C’est le dernier livre qui compris le sujet de cette revue. Pour la premières deux, ça suffit à dire qu’ils sont travelogues—de l’États Unis et Australie, respectivement—et qu’ils sont très amusant. Mais pour la dernière, il y a un peu plus que ça.

Comme dit le titre, One Summer: America, 1927 discute l’effusion d’évènements qui ont arrivé pendant l’été en question. Les deux évènements les plus grandes, ils sont la vole de Charles Lindbergh sue l’Atlantique, de New York à Paris, et la saison remarquable de Babe Ruth, qui a frappé 60 home runs, une record qui durait pour plus que 30 années. Autres évènements notables comprissent l’inondation de la Mississippi; la lutte entre Jack Dempsey et Gene Tunney; le trial sensationnel de Ruth Snyder, qui avait son mari tué par son amoureux, et beaucoup d’autre chose.

L’écriture de Bryson c’est aussi drôle et élégant comme toujours, avec beaucoup des tournes des phrases amusant. C’était tellement plaisant, de relire ses livres pour la deuxième ou troisième fois. C’est certain qu’il y aura une quatrième.

Notes from a Small Island - Bill Bryson

Notes from a Small Island is one of Bryson's most beloved works, and for good reason. Though I wouldn't rank it above Thunderbolt Kid or A Walk in the Woods in his catalog of travel literature, it remains a funny and informative exploration of the British land and its culture. His genuine affection for the place doesn't blind him to its flaws, and he is unflinching in his criticism where he feels criticism is warranted.

I don't have much to say about this one apart from that I like it. It's Bryson—probably even Quintessential Bryson—and that's enough for me.

The Body: a guide for occupants - bill bryson

You can divide Bill Bryson's books into two categories. First are his more narrative works, which are generally travelogues (though I would count Thunderbolt Kid among this group as well), and comprise longer stories of his experiences supplemented with occasional diversions. Second would be his educational works, which choose a subject and explore its deepest chasms for nuggets of arcane interest.

The Body: A Guide for Occupants, as the name suggests, is of the second type, and its subject is self-evident. Bryson leads the reader through the body's many components, as well as branching of into related topics such as medicine. There are small anecdotes peppered throughout, but little in the way of narrative.

In his later years, Bryson has transitioned from a writer primarily of his first type to his second, and while his research is impressive and his writing always informative, I must say I like him best in a more narrative mood, as his gifts for description and flow often go unrealized in his educational books. There's also less room for his humor to reach its full momentum, though no Bryson book is without it’s funny lines. I enjoyed this one, but it may be a while before I read it again, and unlikely that it will enter tier one rotation along with his greatest works, like Thunderbolt Kid, A Walk in the Woods, and A Short History of Nearly Everything (his finest educational book).

The Life and Times of the thunderbolt kid - bill bryson

I have read all of Bill Bryson's books at least once (excepting his newest, which I just bought this afternoon and will start shortly), most of them twice, but The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid holds a personal record for me. I'm not sure how many times I have read it, but a conservative estimate would put it at six. It is my literary comfort food, the book I pick up with the most relish, the one that hits me in the belly with a pang every time I reach its final pages, when I know it will be a couple of years at least before I pick it up again.

Though most famous as a travel writer, Bryson's books--especially his later works--cover a wide range of subjects, from science to history to literature. If I had to categorize him as a particular kind of writer, i would do so (somewhat pretentiously, I admit) as a chronicler of knowledge. Whatever his subject, he covers it with verve, intensity,and an unparalleled wit.

Among his works, Thunderbolt Kid is something of an outlier. It is ostensibly an autobiography, but in Bryson's characteristic meandering style, it becomes as much a biography of his era—1950s America--than of himself. He uses his own experiences as springboards to a discussion of the broader period, its strengths, its mores, its foibles and quirks. He peppers the text with interesting facts and arresting anecdotes, including bizarre news stories that serves as epigraphs for each chapter. The result is a rich exploration of America's apotheosis, told without jingoism but with pride.

Bryson’s prose, as always, is excellent. He is quite possibly the greatest comic writer of his time, and in Thunderbolt Kid he is at the top of his game. There are parts of this book that make me laugh every time I read them, even though I know they’re coming from pages away. While I would argue that his greatest, most out-of-the-park lines actually appear in A Walk in the Woods (his description of a bunk bed mattress, in which he notes that the previous occupant “didn’t so much suffer from incontinence as rejoice in it” can get a belly laugh out of me from memory alone, pretty much at will), I think Thunderbolt Kid is, when taken as a whole, his funniest book, and also his most touching. I already look forward to reading it again.