• The Unseen Body

  • A Doctor's Journey Through the Hidden Wonders of Human Anatomy
  • By: Jonathan Reisman M.D.
  • Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
  • Length: 8 hrs and 21 mins
  • 4.6 out of 5 stars (164 ratings)

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The Unseen Body  By  cover art

The Unseen Body

By: Jonathan Reisman M.D.
Narrated by: Robert Petkoff
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Publisher's summary

In The Unseen Body, a fascinating journey through the human body and across the globe, Dr. Reisman weaves together stories about our insides with a unique perspective on life, culture, and the natural world.

Dr. Jonathan Reisman - a physician, adventure traveler, and naturalist - brings listeners on an odyssey, navigating our insides like an explorer discovering a new world. With unique insight, Reisman shows us how understanding mountain watersheds helps to diagnose heart attacks, how the body is made mostly of mucus, not water, and how urine carries within it a tale of humanity’s origins.

Through his offbeat adventures in health care and across the globe, Reisman discovers new perspectives on the body: a trip to the Alaskan Arctic reveals that fat is not the enemy, but the hero; a stint in the Himalayas uncovers the boundary where the brain ends and the mind begins; and eating a sheep’s head in Iceland offers a lesson in empathy. By relating rich experiences in far-flung lands and among unique cultures back to the body’s inner workings, he shows how our organs live inextricably intertwined lives - an internal ecosystem reflecting the natural world around us.

Reisman offers a new and deeply moving perspective and helps us make sense of our bodies and how they work in a way listeners have never before imagined. 

"Petkoff gives a flawless performance of this doctor/naturalist's memoir, conveying both his inquisitiveness and assuredness with aplomb." (AudioFile)

A Macmillan Audio production from Flatiron Books

©2021 Jonathan Reisman (P)2021 Macmillan Audio

What listeners say about The Unseen Body

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    5 out of 5 stars

Great, Simply Great

I believe the narrator and the author are the same person. They have to be. I refuse to believe they are two separate people. Why? Because the narrator sounds exactly the way I imagine the author sounds. I bet you if they were in the same room, recording the same text, a listener would be unable to tell the difference between these two. And I am even more convinced the author and the narrator would become fast friends if they ever met. But they wouldn't really need to meet because they've already met, as they are one in the same. I don't know what Robert Petkoff knows about medicine, but there's no way he's just some lay person reading about medical stuff. He must have been pre med at some point in his life. Maybe he dropped out of medical school to pursue a career as a narrator. Maybe he's really Jonathan Reid man pretending to be Robert Petkoff. This book is great.

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Fascinating Journey Indeed!

I wish there were more books like this from a physician's point of view. Enlightening!

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1 person found this helpful

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Fun for lovers of anatomy

Well written and pleasant journey though the body with interesting little stories to carry the reader along. Totally accessible to the lay person. As a massage therapist I’m always looking for more information about the body, especially in an entertaining presentation.

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Fantastic

Read it twice!
Beautifully written, easy to understand.
Looking forward to other projects from Dr. Reisman.

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Great !!!

I’m a doctor now. I feel like I completed medical school
Jay Blum
Washington DC

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Fantastic story telling.

The author has been able to weave a tale of science, with the romance of curiosity and discover. Peppering in some more obscure and quirky culinary concepts added more depth to this story. The chapter on adipose tissue made me cry, as I struggled with the pain from the stigma of obesity. The narrator was engaging and easy to listen to for the whole book.

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A must read

Everything you ever wanted to know about how our bodies function - and a delightful
delivery to make it so interesting. Could not stop listening! Good narration and you come away delighted with the author somehow. A fascinating read if you want to know how we all “work inside “ our bodies.

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    3 out of 5 stars
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struggled to finish

Full of personal anecdotes and travelog-ish. Sometimes seemed superficial. An unexpected approach, some good, some disappointing.

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this was the best book my sig. other ever read

I got this for my significant other. he loved the book! told me for now to not take out of the Ipod. he will read again. he never doe this! it must be good. I did not read as it is not my kind of book tho mike is trying to get me to read it. I like fiction best or true crime.

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  • RI
  • 05-10-22

Thoroughly enjoyed it.

Several family members thoroughly enjoyed it. We’re grateful that Dr. Reisman took the time to educate and/or remind us in layman’s language of parts of the human body and its functions. I would eagerly read a follow up.

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