a book

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Name: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Rating: 5 (13 reviews)
Author: Bill Bryson
ISBN: 9780767908184

Bill Bryson · 2004 · 544 pages

THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One of the world’s most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey—into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer. “Brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing.”—The New York Times In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.

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recommended by 13 people

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Andrej Karpathy
“This is an ambitious book covering the history and development of ideas from a very wide range of topics pertaining to how we (humans) got here. Bryson starts all the way with the big bang, to the formation of the cosmos, the solar system and the planet, abiogenesis, evolution, and finally human prehistory. The book spices up a relatively high-level discussion of the relevant scientific topics with the lives and idiosyncrasies of the scientists who made the critical discoveries. I admire the book for its scope, but an unfortunate side effect is that the book doesn’t get a chance to dive in to any one topic in a satisfying manner. Instead we get an overview of many topics and ideas which is fun sometimes unless you’re already familiar with the topics (e.g. Darwin’s beagle voyages, Watson&Crick’s DNA discovery, spread of humans from Africa, etc.). I personally somehow found the book a little tedious by the end and I was happy when it was over. Marking read, phew. 3/5 - it was okay. I suspect someone less familiar with many of the topics who is content with a broad but shallow overview and willing to hear a lot about the lives of scientists who made the relevant discoveries could enjoy it much more.”
Andreas Klinger
“FYI: what i read this year (following @vcstarterkit's rule) Bold the ones i would highly recommend. I switched to mainly listening to audiobooks and only "read" for entertainment. Hence mostly space scifi.”↗
Dominic D'Agostino
“Just finishing "Short History of Nearly Everything". This book is information-dense and manages to be humorous and super entertaining. Audiobook is perfect for a long road trip if you have Audible.”↗
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