Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • North & South

    In Praise of (Two) Old White Guys

    Nov 10, 2019 5 minutes
    nerd nation by jenny nicholls

    I’VE JUST SPENT 900 pages in the company of two “old white guys”: the Australian zoologist and explorer Tim Flannery, 63, and the American-English writer Bill Bryson, 67. They have each published a plump volume in time for Christmas, two fat, rich puddings of science – both, thanks to their consummate skill, easy to digest.

    Bryson’s book describes “this warm wobble of flesh” – the human body, with its skin, heart, bones, guts, blood, brain and immune system; its diseases and its mortality – with the same breezy humour that made his science bestseller A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) such a classic.

    The Body: A Guide for Occupants

    (Penguin Random House, $55), like all great popular science books, grasps the nettle of complexity without thrashing the reader to death with it. There’s the immune system, for instance, which I call mind-bogglingly complicated and

    You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

    More from North & South

    North & South1 min read
    Another Year
    As the country’s orchards and vineyards gear up for a bumper harvest — places like Marlborough, Martinborough and Hawke’s Bay have seen perfect growing conditions this season — owners are again desperate for workers and there are fears for the second
    North & South4 min read
    The Urbanist
    If you poke your head inside The Urban Winery, a wine bar and cellar door in Napier’s Ahuriri marina, the first thing you’ll spy is a massive wooden egg. Nestled inside the stylish, art deco Rothmans Building, it glows a pale gold in the dark, lit up
    North & South2 min read
    Four Corners
    John Wotherspoon is feeling a bit conflicted. The Department of Conservation’s Nelson Lakes operations manager has no love lost for the Douglas fir — he’s spent the past 20 years removing the invasive pine from St Arnaud as part of a wider programme

    Related Books & Audiobooks