New review series: Library Treasures

What book lover doesn’t also love a library?
Our public libraries are places of connection and learning and offer the precious gift of books at minimal or no cost to the reader.

And there is so much to adore about the newer phenomenon of street libraries: sharing, reciprocity and sustainability embodied in a humble cupboard or shelf outside someone’s home, for any and all to borrow from and contribute to.

I use and love both forms of libraries, so I thought it about time that I occasionally write about the treasures I find there.

These will usually be older books rather than new releases – though who knows what I’ll find at my local libraries or street cupboards?

Perhaps someone will be prompted to seek out a book at their local library if it sounds like their cup of tea.

First book off the shelf:

‘The Body: A Guide for Occupants’ by Bill Bryson

I enjoy Bryson’s writing, his quirky dry humour influenced by his birthplace, America, and also Britain where he spent many of his adult years. His travel writing is especially funny and insightful, though in more recent times he has expanded out into many other areas of non-fiction: history and science writing, for example. The Body is a bit of a blend of both.

It’s a big volume: 386 pages, not including notes and index. Bryson’s writing style is engaging, so even for someone like me (generally very much not a reader of science-related topics) it doesn’t feel like a slog.

It’s divided into chapters that traverse the main components of the human body, from our hearts and brains, skeletons, all the chemical wizardry that keeps us ticking along, what and how we eat, speak, see and hear…you get the idea.

The book is also chock full of amazing tidbits that kept me gasping: I didn’t know that!

Turns out there is so much about this body we inhabit from birth to death, that most of us are completely in the dark about.

Just a few examples:

• We all have more than a metre of DNA packed into every cell, and so many cells that put into a single strand, they would stretch ten billion miles to beyond Pluto. Enough to leave the solar system. You are in the most literal sense cosmic. p5
• Studies have shown the astounding (and to be honest, rather shocking) ways in which viruses and bacteria can spread from one human to another. One US study showed that a pretend virus spread from a door handle to an entire office building in just four hours, turning up on virtually every surface. p36
  Wash your hands, people!
• Motion sickness causes nausea because the body thinks it is being poisoned. p88
  As a lifelong travel sickness sufferer, I’m not sure that is reassuring, but still interesting.
• Our sense of smell is unbelievably complex, involving huge numbers of chemical compounds and various processes in our brains as well as our noses. p90
• Our kidneys produce a bathtub’s worth of water and salt every day. p155
  Don’t forget to hydrate!

And many, many more jaw-dropping, humourous or simply wondrous facts…

Along the way are fascinating stories of how many of these facts were discovered, the personalities (dedicated, obsessive, or sometimes downright weird) of researchers who uncovered them. Some of these made me very glad to be alive now, not in medieaval times or even a century ago.

The final chapter is, of course, about the process of dying, and illustrates how much we still don’t know abut this normal, common, necessary but mysterious process.

All in all, The Body: A Guide for Occupants is an engrossing read, an absolute library treasure.
I’m grateful to my wonderful book group because the reason I borrowed it from my local library is that it is the first book set for our group for 2026. I might not have picked it up, otherwise, but I am very glad I did.

The Body: A Guide for Occupants was published by Doubleday (an imprint of Penguin Books) in 2019.

Library photos by Sean Ingram and Rafael Cosquiere at pexels.