The inimitable Bill Bryson’s amiable, often incisive, travel narratives are among my very most beloved books ever, and I love his explorations of the English language, Shakespeare and the like, but his impeccably researched popular science works — first, A Short History of Nearly Everything, then At Home, and now this one — are, quite simply, works of staggering genius.
This one is somewhat squickier than his earlier scholarly tomes, because the human body itself is squickier, of course, but it is nevertheless fascinating, as Bryson not only details the various parts and functions of our biology but also honours those who have examined it so thoroughly and dedicatedly (and, at times, unethically) throughout the millennia.
It is fantastic.
Read it.
SCORECARD
TBR DAY 293: The Body: A Guide for Occupants by Bill Bryson
GENRE: Non-Fiction, Popular Science
PUBLISHED: 2019
TIME ON THE TBR: 1 month.
PURCHASED FROM: Amazon.
KEEP: Of course.
Famous as the world’s first example of Gothic literature, this book is confusing in that it seems to be a satire of Gothic literature. Can one really satirize a thing as one simultaneously creates it? 
Well, this is yet another intriguing entry into the Poirot canon. A wealthy old lady dies on the brink of making a new will (because, duh), then a young woman close to her is poisoned, and the old lady’s niece is arrested for both deaths.
Michael Palin is, of course, a comedy god, a fact proven again and again not only through his Monty Python hijinks but his travel narratives, and much more. But does he have skill with kids’ books?
A sprightly and engaging story of hardships, embarrassments, friendships and dating, successful screenwriter Ayser Salman’s reminiscences of being an immigrant in America, an expat in Saudi Arabia, an Iraqi during two Gulf Wars and a Muslim post-9/11 kept me entranced all the way through. Her storytelling is effortless, her humour often subtle, and her life completely fascinating, while also being infinitely relateable. 
I am a sucker for books of essays that turn beloved pop culture into topics for scholarly discourse, and this one is a fine example of the breed. I can’t say I agreed with all of the conclusions, or even propositions, enclosed within these pages, but I thoroughly enjoyed Cass R. Sunstein’s in-depth look of the world of Star Wars, its place in our society, and the lessons we can take not only from its text (and subtext) but from each of our reactions to this entertainment behemoth.
As an eleven-year-old, I fell in love with world of the glittering English Regency through the work of the incomparable Georgette Heyer. In the years since my admiration for her has only grown, and along the way I have happily found more than one author who, while never quite matching Heyer’s wit, scholarship and style when it comes to historical romance, has nevertheless followed closely enough in her footsteps that I have greatly enjoyed their various versions of this history-inspired fairy tale world she all-but created.
One thing that never occurred to me when I read “A Scandal in Bohemia” — the 1891 first Sherlock Holmes short story, coming after the novels A Study in Scarlet and The Sign of the Four — in which Holmes is tasked with tracking down a photograph incriminating to the King of Bohemia is that there was never actually a king of Bohemia. 
I am so mad that I brought this book back with me from London more than a decade ago, and have given it shelf space ever since. WHY did I do that? Why did I not read it as soon as I bought it and learn how unutterably boring it was right away, and discard it with prejudice before allowing it to take up valuable baggage allowance on an across-the-world flight?
I stopped reading this one as soon as the hateful Earl of Northcliffe called sex with his teenage virgin bride a “ploughing” not very many chapters in. I should have stopped earlier, when the horrible men of his horrible family start detailing their tribe of illegitimate children, not all of whom were birthed by entirely willing maidens.