A Short History of Nearly Everything

Jan 24, 2010 Paul rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Okay, so here's my Bill Bryson story. I was in The Gladstone, a public house not too far from this very keyboard, with my friend Yvonne, who will remain nameless. We had been imbibing more than freely. A guy approached our table and asked me in a sly surreptitious manner if I was him. Him who? Was I Bill Bryson? Now it is true that I bear a very slight resemblance

but you could also say that about Bjorn from Abba

and a zillion other white guys with beards and gently rounded fizzogs. Anyway, withou...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Sandy Tjan rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2009, general-non-fiction

What I learned from this book (in no particular order)

1. Phosphor was accidentally discovered when a scientist tried to turn human urine into gold. The similarity in color seemed to have been a factor in his conviction that this was possible. Like, duh. I’m no scientist, but shouldn’t it be obvious enough?

2. “In the early 1800s there arose in England a fashion for inhaling nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, after it was discovered that its use ‘ was attended by a highly pleasurable thrilling’. For...more

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Sep 06, 2007 Sarah rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, popular-science

Bryson's dead serious: this is a history of pretty much everything there is -- the planet, the solar system, the universe -- as well as a history of how we've come to know as much as we do. A book on science written by a non-scientist, this a perfect bridge between the humanities and the natural sciences. A course in the history of science should be mandatory for every teenager, and this should be the textbook.

Yes, it's a big, chunky book. No, it can't be trimmed down any further: when you're ad...more Bryson's dead serious: this is a history of pretty much everything there is -- the planet, the solar system, the universe -- as well as a history of how we've come to know as much as we do. A book on science written by a non-scientist, this a perfect bridge between the humanities and the natural sciences. A course in the history of science should be mandatory for every teenager, and this should be the textbook.

Yes, it's a big, chunky book. No, it can't be trimmed down any further: when you're addressing cosmology, earth science, ecology and zoology, with healthy doses of chemistry and physics, plus the historical development of each, you're going to end up with a doorstop of a text, no matter how smoothly written. The wonder of Bryson's writing is that the reader doesn't get lost in these sweeping surveys. When name-dropping, Bryson always gives a short description of the person in question; if mentioned earlier in the book, he drops in a quick reminder to the reader. This is fabulously effective at giving the names some context, not to mention a little personality.

And indeed, isn't that what science education needs most: more humanity and less intimidation? Those science-phobes out there who freely admit their near-complete ignorance of the subject should do themselves a favor and buy a copy of this book. No, don't get it from your library. There's so much here you'll want to have a copy on hand to refer to later.

To those nerds in the audience -- myself included -- don't think your degrees mean you can pass this one over. As hyper-specialized as science has become, it's refreshing as hell to step back and take a look at things with new eyes. While there's not a lot here I haven't encountered before, there's a lot of information about how our current theories were developed that I didn't know.

(Also? It's heartening to read about the social ineptitude, blind spots, and how utterly incompetent many of these scientist were in other aspects of life. Makes me feel better about never finishing that PhD -- at least I have a life.)

Thorough, humorous, engaging, and educational: what's not to like?
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Jan 05, 2013 Manny rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone even slightly interested in science

Recommended to Manny by: Leon Stirling

Shelves: history-and-biography, science, well-i-think-its-funny

It's easy to nitpick A Short History of Nearly Everything. Bryson, by his own cheerful admission anything but a scientist, makes a fair number of mistakes. He says that all living creatures contain hox genes; he omits Alexander Friedmann and George Gamow from his description of how the Big Bang theory was developed; when talking about Darwin and Paley, he doesn't seem to be aware that Natural Theology was one of Darwin's favorite books and had a huge influence on him. Those are just a few of the...more

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Oct 12, 2007 Foster rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: history, philosophy-and-religion

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There, I said it

Bryson's book combines the best qualities of science writers like Attenborough, Diamond, Durrell, and Wilson; presenting the information with the wit he is most known for. It is an amazing achievement to condense the entire base of human scientific knowledge into 478 pages, but Bryson has done it. I completely agree with Tim Flannery, who writes on the jacket that "all schools would be better places if it were the core sci...more This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There, I said it

Bryson's book combines the best qualities of science writers like Attenborough, Diamond, Durrell, and Wilson; presenting the information with the wit he is most known for. It is an amazing achievement to condense the entire base of human scientific knowledge into 478 pages, but Bryson has done it. I completely agree with Tim Flannery, who writes on the jacket that "all schools would be better places if it were the core science reader on the curriculum." I certainly would have gained much if I had read it when I was 15.

This is one of the few books that has truly challenged what I had previously held to be conventional wisdom (at least in my own mind). Two main changes have come about:

1. I had always been jealous of the "true" zoologists, such as Audubon and Darwin, who were around when the world was as yet unexplored, and discovering a species was as simple as being the first to walk into a patch of forest. I left science because the idea of being tied to a sterile lab held no interest for me. However, after reading Bryson's vignettes of early scientific/zoological exploration (much of which was both comic and tragic), I realize that those days weren't quite as idyllic as I had imagined.
2. Bryson does a "good" job of scaring the hell out of you by showing just how precarious our daily existence really is. I probably shouldn't say this, but it puts such problems as global climate change into context when you read how an eruption of the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park would wipe out most of the life on earth in a painfully slow manner; especially when Bryson describes how this eruption is overdue by 30, 000 years by historical average.

Combined with those two new impressions, I am left with the following conclusions, and a slightly rearranged outlook on life.

First off, it is clear that science benefits from a large degree of serendipity. We as a species/civilization have been lucky to have some truly great minds working on deciphering the way our world works. Some of these are household names [Newton, Halley, Einstein], some are not [Henry Cavendish, Rosalind Franklin]. However, as with everything that us humans put our hands on, this endeavor wasn't perfect. Egregious mistakes, pathological lying, childlike rivalries and tantrums - they all occurred. On balance, whether they helped or hurt the effort isn't clear. But what is clear is that our present level of understanding was by no means assured.

Secondly, the fact that life is so tenuous makes one a little more philosophical. Since I've finished the chapter about Yellowstone and similar catastrophic threats, I find myself asking "what if today is the day?" It can be rough when you get on the bus at the end of a particularly annoying workday, when the disagreements were petty and you didn't get much done, and think "is that what I did on the last day of my life?"

Thankfully, that attitude only lasted for a short while, until I was able to reframe it in a more productive way. Now I tell myself not to worry about big problems that might happen in the future, because I know that we will be hit by a meteor, we will experience a supervolcano eruption. It's best to just enjoy every day, doing what you really know to be what it is that you want to do. Does that mean that I won't recycle anymore, that I will leave the tap running while I brush my teeth? No! Because doing things to reduce my impact makes me feel good, that I'm thinking about society's needs - not just my own. It's what I want to do.

So, in an incredible way (that even Bill Bryson probably didn't predict) this book can really change your life.(less)

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Sep 15, 2007 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: science dummies with a sense of humour.

Shelves: popular-science, non-fiction

I know virtually nothing about science, so it was with some trepidation that I began reading this introduction to life, the universe and everything, which deals with questions such as "How did the universe originate?" and "How much does planet Earth weigh?". I ended up enjoying the hell out of it, as Bryson's writing style is so witty and accessible that it frequently made me laugh out loud. He has a knack of telling you not just about major developments in the history of the universe, but also...more

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Jul 29, 2007 Bookshop rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction

Bill Bryson is one of my favourite travel writers. He is immensely funny. He's an American married to a Brit and lives in the UK now. That has an influcence is his writing: he has taken up the dry, self-depreciating humour of the Brits while, at times, remained blunt and straight-forward, as Americans do.

This is his first attempt to write something other than travelling. The book is about science, general science for general public. It covers everything from astronomy to zoology, from the univer...more

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May 03, 2009 Jacob rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2008-2009, science-and-nature, i-own

May 2009

I "read" the audiobook version about a year and a half ago and really enjoyed it--this book can be really enjoyed in small doses--but I felt like reading it in print this time around. At least, skimming a previous paragraph is a lot easier than trying to rewind while driving.

Turns out it's good in big doses too, or any for that matter. Although I haven't read much science writing (yet) and therefore can't compare it to others, I will admit that A Short History of Nearly Everything is on...more

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Oct 28, 2007 Grumpus rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: anyone wanting to know how it all began

Shelves: audiobook

This is based upon the audio download from [www.audible.com].

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Don’t let the 3 star rating mislead you. This was an awesome book and I’m certain others will think more highly of it. It is a great introduction for those not into the biography of the universe and the history of science. However, if you watch the Science Channel, History Channel, PBS, etc., then you’ll already know much of what’s covered. It is the true "Once upon a time. . ." story.

As someone with an in...more

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Apr 28, 2009 Jamie rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: absolutely anyone

Shelves: nature-walk, non-fiction

Good grief if I had even one textbook half this enthralling in high school, who knows what kind of impassioned -ologist I would have grown up to be. I hereby petition Bryson to re-write all curriculum on behalf of the history of the world.

I would run across things half-remembered from midterms and study guides and think, "You mean this is what they were talking about? You have got to be kidding me." It's never condescending, always a joy.

In fact, what I loved most is the acute, childlike sense o...more

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Jul 11, 2008 John rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: The world...

Shelves: fact, humour, multiple-re-reads

Bill Bryson is excellent... so witty and funny. His writing makes me laugh out loud and cry with laughter - sometimes I can barely breathe.

His research is also wonderful and the facts, presented in this book, are not only interesting, but also startling, fascinating and stimulating. The whole book is wonderfully assembled and a delight to read, re-read and simply to dip into.

Indeed... I am re-reading again....

It is, however, a severe worry to me that many of the facts that I am re-reading for th...more

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Mar 15, 2008 Megan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

It says I finished this is March 2008 but it is important to note I started it last summer. It took a long time. Interestingly though that doesn't mean it was bad, it is just long and caters easily to frequently month long stops. It is an easy book to pick up and start anywhere. All in all I really liked it, it is mostly a nicely written history of science and some sciences have more interesting history's than others but they all have their eccentrics.
Bill Byrson is always entertaining and fun...more

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Apr 18, 2013 Aurelien rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: science

In about 600 pages, Bill Bryson has the audacity and talent to tell us not only the history of science and its major discoveries but, also how it works. He even takes advantage of it all to portray some scientists in delicious, although at times doubtful biographical sketches.

In fact, in order to tackle such a challenge (how to make difficult and seemingly dull subjects interesting to a large audience) Bryson decided to adopt a very simple and entertaining approach. Thus, the whole seems at tim...more

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Dec 25, 2012 Ron Christiansen rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nf, science

I wondered about Bryon's audacious title--a history of EVERYTHING, really?--but he actually nearly pulls it off. Of course it isn't everything yet it is a sweeping history of, to cite Bryson's intro, "how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us." And there is so much to digest.

Halfway into the book I had to ask myself why I was reading this very long, at times difficult book, while it is late December and I still h...more I wondered about Bryon's audacious title--a history of EVERYTHING, really?--but he actually nearly pulls it off. Of course it isn't everything yet it is a sweeping history of, to cite Bryson's intro, "how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us." And there is so much to digest.

Halfway into the book I had to ask myself why I was reading this very long, at times difficult book, while it is late December and I still have six books to read before the end of the year before nailing the 50 book mark. Not to mention that my memory for the details, the names, the scientific histories and processes, sucks. My answer came quickly and succinctly: "I'm reading it for the wonder."

Many times while reading I laughed out loud, shook my head, guffawed incredulously. One early such moment came while reading a summary of Einstein's famous three papers published in one year with no university affiliation: the won a Nobel Prize and explained the nature of light; the second proved that atoms existed; the third changed the world. But Einstein is quite well-known. There were many other such moments connected to the more obscure: his descriptions of the utter destruction from the compressed air beneath a comet; bundles of surprising paradigm shifting facts: 80% of the biomass are microbes; the ancient Titanis--a giant 10' 800 lb bird; a spoonful of the core of a neutron weighs 200 billion pounds.

Well, I could name many more such facts (by looking at the notes on my back cover :) but the most important aspect of the book is the story--the how we got here and the men and women who courageously, stupidly, luckily figured out bits of the puzzle. But also our astonishingly lack of knowledge of so much and so much so close like the ocean. What don't we know? Well we have only been to the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest place in the Pacific, ONCE and it was in the 1950s. OR the insanely happenstance: in 1994 34,000 ice hockey gloves were swept overboard in the Pacific--mapping where they popped up from Vancouver to Vietnam helped oceanographers trace the currents.

What Bryson does is get at the complex story of how we have come to understand our world. It is a fascinating yet troubling story and I was full of wonder every minute of the journey. (less)

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Feb 22, 2012 Daniel Bastian rated it 5 of 5 stars

There's perhaps a no more accessible or engrossing scientific read than Bill Bryson's 2003 opus. A Short History of Nearly Everything is not as impossibly far-reaching as the title might indicate, as every field of science that explains our universe and its inhabitants is expertly marshaled, peppered with a perfect level of detail and is logically ordered in a way that just makes sense. He fully engages science's tough and complex questions, seemingly rather preemptively, as after a concept is e...more There's perhaps a no more accessible or engrossing scientific read than Bill Bryson's 2003 opus. A Short History of Nearly Everything is not as impossibly far-reaching as the title might indicate, as every field of science that explains our universe and its inhabitants is expertly marshaled, peppered with a perfect level of detail and is logically ordered in a way that just makes sense. He fully engages science's tough and complex questions, seemingly rather preemptively, as after a concept is explained, he immediately proceeds with the most obvious question to follow. Everything from the Big Bang to man's (exceedingly terse) evolutionary past is represented here according to each field's most notable and eminent figures. It's clear Bryson carefully chose the most interesting and distinguished men and women of science to include here, and it's all laid out in adverb-heavy, eminently readable prose.

Bryson spends a great amount of time on natural disasters, providing excellent analogies to help readers understand both the scale and mechanics of them. Ice ages, earthquakes, supervolcanos, epidemics and pandemics are all given proper due. Given all the atrocities and chaos that has besieged our planet, outlined here in great statistical detail, it becomes axiomatically clear by the end of the book that humans - or any life for that matter - are incredibly lucky to even be here. In light of all that has gone wrong and can go wrong, it's remarkable there is any life to comment on the tragedy and disarray. I commend Bryson for demonstrating how truly diminutive our time here on Earth is relative to the universe's imponderably vast history.

He also emphasizes throughout how relatively little we know about Earth, the universe and ourselves, and what exactly we still don't understand. Contrary to what some scientists may have you believe, there's exponentially more we do not know than what we do know.

Although the book was published in 2003, there is little that is out of date given today's scientific knowledge. The confirmed interbreeding between Neanderthals, Cro-Magnons and Denisovans being one notable recent development. I feel a greater emphasis on climate change could have been given, but Bryson chose to skirt over it in the Ice Age section.

The content in this book is something I think everyone should know and be exposed to, and it's hard to imagine it being presented in better form than it is here.(less)

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Oct 28, 2012 Lennongirl rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: type-non-fiction, t-popular-science, medium-audiobook, t-while-jogging, 3-stars-liked, read-in-german, read-in-2012

Interesting and informative, this "short" history of nearly everything offers an entertaining overview on how we and our world came into being - and developed until what we know, see and live today.

This is very much focused on (popular) science, a topic, which sometimes is a bit too dry for my liking. Personally, I prefer the historical tidbits around the "pure" scientific facts, and usual, Bryson delivers these as well, but it could've been more for me - I muchly prefered his "other compendium"...more

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Sep 15, 2010 Dave Gaston rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: nonfiction, discovery, ecology-earth-science, history, invention, science

First off, this is a huge departure from Bryson's breezy, excellent travel logs. Secondly, this book should be read with some frequency. It is so densely packed with valuable insight, and sound bites of discovery that you could not possibly absorb it all with one pass. This is my second time reading it and I plan on doing it again next year. The organizational structure is a wonderful series of loosely connected cameos covering several essential and enlightened discoveries of man. As an added bo...more

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May 07, 2010 Ben Babcock rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: science, non-fiction, own, history, deliciously-quotable, favourites, technology, 2010-read, 2010-best10

Second reading review, May 7, 2010.

I cannot recommend this book enough. No word of hyperbole: this is a book that everyone should read. Bill Bryson takes the span of human existence and produced a popular history of science that's both accurate and moving. A Short History of Nearly Everything is a celebration of science, but it also evokes the sense of wonder about the universe that science makes available to us. And, almost inevitably, it underscores how much we still have yet to learn about ou...more

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Jul 27, 2009 Marian rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: quit

You're probably looking at this book thinking it is so far off my normal path. And it is. I'm chalking it up to penance for doing so poorly in every science class I ever attended.

I truly gave this book an honest effort, but at 2/3 of the way through I cannot continue. In all honesty, the book probably deserves a 5-star rating given there is no fault to be found with either the research or the writing. The problem here is this reader has a 1-star IQ. So I split the difference with 3 stars.

Bryson...more

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Apr 03, 2008 David rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: pop-science, nonfiction

There are, broadly speaking, two classes of interesting popular science books. The first class is written by scientists who want to reach a popular audience; the second class is written by journalists who find a particular scientific topic interesting. Good examples of the first class include the writing of Henri Poincare (The Value of Science is a recent printing of three of his books in one volume -- still relevant over a century after they appeared, and it made me wish I could read the origin...more

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Jan 10, 2008 Sammy rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: anyone that enjoys earth science, living on earth, or understanding the planet on which they live.

I really love this book.
I really think you should read it.

I must admit that I'm somewhat biased; I was already a fan of Bryson's work, and I am generally interested in the sciences. Perhaps as a function of that, I believe this to be my favorite of his books (so far).

It's hard for me not to talk to people about the things I read in this book. I mean, it's all so completely interesting to me that I think it should be discussed at all times, in addition to the fact that I don't think people reali...more I really love this book.
I really think you should read it.

I must admit that I'm somewhat biased; I was already a fan of Bryson's work, and I am generally interested in the sciences. Perhaps as a function of that, I believe this to be my favorite of his books (so far).

It's hard for me not to talk to people about the things I read in this book. I mean, it's all so completely interesting to me that I think it should be discussed at all times, in addition to the fact that I don't think people realize a lot of the things discussed therein.

I read excerpts to my sixth graders, most of whom sigh in response to my enthusiasm, when related topics arise in class, particularly Science and Social Studies (Pompeii is always good for a volcano digression), but I really can't imagine any grown individual of reasonable intellect and range of interests to find this book lacking.

And yes, I'm willing to contend that some aspects may be overlooked, or others perhaps exaggerated, but come on: Bryson never claimed to be a scientist. Science is imperfect itself, so who can really harp on someone who's just trying to put a little spunk into what many consider unreasonably drab or unappealing material? If anything, any hiccups in accuracy catalyze debate and arguments, which, inevitably, elevates scientific discourse. Even our failures lead to progress.

I consider this book to have been somewhat eye-opening with respect to the cursory science education many of us get (save but for scientists, and those pursuing that area of Academia). I mean, take it from me, one who teaches sixth grade science: the curriculum isn't all that exciting at times, and if you only paid attention as much as most of my students, this book goes a lot farther in teaching you where exactly we live, and how unlikely it is that you're reading this right now.

(Those probabilistic assertions being made, I might point you to John Allen Paulos's "Innumeracy: Mathematical Illiteracy and Its Consequences" for a similarly eye-opening treatment of mathematics. At the very least, you'll get to wow your friends by calculating the rate at which human hair grows in miles per hour.)(less)

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Nov 07, 2007 Jason rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

I found the title of this work somewhat misleading. Perhaps it should have been called A History of the Natural Sciences or maybe even A Short History of Natural History. Nevertheless, science books often do not sell well so I am sure the idea in titling the book A Short History of Nearly Everything was to attract more of a broad readership. The book itself isn't awful but certainly reads like a survey work. In other words, you won't learn complicated how-tos of scientific methodology but you wi...more

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Feb 24, 2009 Dan rated it 5 of 5 stars Recommends it for: Nearly everyone

This book is amazing tto me. As a social studies teacher it may seem as a strange choise but I bought this book after a recomendation (yes, Magnus, it was Robert).

He hadn't finished it but said that it was funny to digest in small packages. He was wrong. I'm trying to find time to read this one as much as I can. The book is truly in the genre of sience, but the good thing about it is that it does not only speak strange sience terms (to me) but it gives me the stories about the scientist and HOW...more

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Jul 15, 2009 Punk rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, science, history

Non-Fiction. Bryson's travelogue of scientific discovery is heavy on trivia and light on science. This is a history more than a science book, which is right in the title, I know, but in the introduction, he says he set out to discover what scientists know, like how much the Earth weighs, and how they figured that out, but mostly what we get is who figured it out and when.

The science is watered down, but the stories of scientific achievement (backstabbing and all) make up for it, and Bryson does...more

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Jun 08, 2007 Sarah rated it 5 of 5 stars

I have to say this is by far one of the best books I've ever read. Although I haven't finished I'm in love with this book.
My chemistry teacher gave me it to read a while back and it took me a while to get started on it, but after I did I couldn't put it down. You don't have to have a real passion for physics or biology or chemistry to appreciate the book as a whole. Although I find some chapters more intresting than others, the footnotes that Bryson includes definetly make the book as lighthear...more

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May 17, 2007 Abe Brennan rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is what its title claims: a comprehensive—and often hilarious—look at the big moments in natural history, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc. Bryson's breezy narrative style suits the project well, and his initial professed ignorance helps get the reader on board from the outset (no didacticism here—he’s a dummy like the rest of us (well, me, at any rate)). He may be prone to overdo the humor (or perhaps go too far in the cheese department), but the fact that he adopts a rather irrever...more

A Short History of Nearly Everything

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