150 of 163 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Anatomy and Physiology for Dummies, May 8, 2008
In short, just a very fun and informative book with several worthy goals. For one, it educates your average person in the inner workings of the human body. It does this quite entertainingly through frequent quizzes, trivia, facts, and interesting pictures- for instance the authors use a lot of elf cartoon. Corny, but fun.
Additionally, the book also gives one many helpful tips on how to keep their body running smoother and it is a pretty informative and amusing read that should enhance the well-being of many- especially middle-agers like me who want to learn more about how their bodies work so they can keep it running smoothly in the years to come. Aged readers may also be interested in
Treat Your Own Rotator Cuff to keep the shoulder working well- 54% of people over the age of 60 have a torn rotator cuff.
Note: People who have read the first "You The Owner's Manual" will notice additional information on the liver and pancreas, as well as a new workout chapter.
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105 of 113 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Your body is a wonderland, May 13, 2008
What a fun and important book! Everyone with a body should have a copy.
When I first cracked it open I landed on page 234: Figure 8.1 The Male Dipstick (yes, that's how it's titled). At first glance the full-page illustration of the male reproductive organs appears to be from any science reference book, but then I look again. Mr. Peanut is drawn hanging onto a tubule inside the scrotum.
This kind of silliness permeates "You: The Owner's Manual." The humor and breezy tone makes it a surprisingly easy read.
The first two-thirds of the book covers everything in the human body, from the heart and brain to the lungs and liver. The last third focuses on ways to keep your body healthy. A 70-page chapter called the Owner's Manual Diet has more than 30 recipes, enough for a 10-day trial. The diet isn't so much about losing weight, but about "making you feel better, helping you live younger, and slowing the effects of aging." The following chapter, the Owner's Manual Workout, illustrates some simple exercises.
Throughout the book are fun "Factoids." Did you know that pound for pound, the tongue is the strongest muscle? Also scattered throughout are lots of little quizzes.
Under the dust jacket is a plain red cover.
Here's the chapter list:
1. Your Body, Your Home: Super Health
2. The Beat Goes On: Your Heart and Arteries
3. Do You Mind: Your Brain and Nervous System
4. Motion Control: Your Bones, Joints and Muscles
5. To a Lung and Healthy Life: Your Lungs
6. Gut Feelings: Your Digestive System
7. In Your Trunk: Your Liver and Pancreas
8. Sex Marks the Spot: Your Sexual Organs
9. Common Sense: Your Sensory Organs
10. Sick Sense: Your Immune System
11. This Gland is Your Gland: Your Hormones
12. Hell Cells: Cancer
13. The Owner's Manual Diet
14. The Owner's Manual Workout
15. FAQs
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158 of 178 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Good Information Buried in a Sea of Jokes, September 27, 2008
I'm having a very hard time with this book. I've started and stopped reading it about dozen times already in the past 2 weeks. My problem? There is a lot of good information in here (really!) but it gets lost in the constant barrage of sarcasm and jokes inserted by the authors to (apparently) make it "entertaining". For me, the sheer number of jokes starts out as annoying, and finally becomes so distracting that I usually have to put the book down after about 20 minutes.
Here's an example of what I'm talking about from page 176 under a heading of "Mouth":
"The food-consumption process starts right here--in your body's food processor. Though opera singers, politicians, and courtside fans are known mostly for what comes out of their mouths, what makes our mouths so special is how we handle what goes into them. For starters, consider you mouth to be like the guy who buckles you in on a Ferris wheel--it's there simply to prepare the food for the journey."
The paragraph then goes on to describe crocodile teeth and elephant teeth, but I'm so distracted with thoughts of "what do opera singers and Ferris wheels have to do with MY mouth?" that I'm no longer learning, I'm ruminating on low ratio of information-to-jokes in the text. (Out of the 7 sentences in that paragraph, I felt the relevant information could have been boiled down to 2.)
Like I said, the book has a LOT of good information. If you are someone who can filter out all of the "noise", you'll get a lot out of it. However, if you're like me, and find all the sidebars distracting, it's a grind.
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