By now you will know that I can never pass up a chance to look at those second-hand books on offer at our local Vinnies store. Yesterday was no exception, and so, after we had come back from our visit to David Bretherton at Moruya Heads, I quickly popped in before they could shut the doors on me - and I'm so pleased I did!
There, on the shelf right in front of me, almost defying me not to find it, was a hardcover Doubleday edition of a Bill Bryson book I had never even heard of before: "The Body - A Guide for Occupants". What a find!
On the way home - Padma was driving! - I had already learned more about the human anatomy than I had during all of the three quarters of a century before! And there was another twenty-one chapters to go! Unfortunately for you, there's no online copy of the book on archive.org but I did find the first two chapters as audiobooks on YouTube. Turn up the volume, turn down the lights, and immerse yourself and enjoy.
Reading the book's frontispiece held another surprise: at the end of a list headed "Also by Bill Bryson", naming a dozen-or-so books I had already read and have now in my library, I found "The Road to Little Dribbling" which turns out to be a sequel to "Notes from a Small Island".
You may be satisfied to read it online at www.archive.org but I need to feel the cover, turn the pages, and smell the ink, so $18.99 plus free postage it was! What would I be without ebay? (a lot richer, I guess)
