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Summary: The Perfect Tour Guide
Review: Bill Bryson is a wonderful writer whether leading the reader through his own travels (In a Sunburned Country) or through the dense thicket where language and history meet (the superb Made in America). It is still a surprise, though, that he is also just as good at leading a science novice through a history of science that ranges swiftly from astronomy to physics to chemistry to geology to biology with incredible leaps and not a few bounds. A Short History of Nearly Everything is almost everything the title proposes (it can be argued that at almost five hundred pages it may not qualify as short). That the author makes the book entertaining, sometimes gripping and sometime funny, is understandable given his skill as a writer demonstrated previously, but that he can make the science relatively understandable to me is a beautiful revelation. No one wields an anecdote with such skill as the author. One of the better all-round science books for the general audience that I have encountered that will lead me to more specific topics of interest. This book was a great pleasure.
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Summary: Must read for Bryson fans
Review: I am a 13 year old kid and allready a huge Bryson fan. I've only red four of his books but this is my favorite. The is so much information that you can't get anywhere else in one place. In one word: astounding.
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Summary: WHAT SCIENCE IN SCHOOLS SHOULD BE LIKE
Review: In many ways, this *is* yet another trademark Bryson travelogue afterall, just that instead of charting the backwaters of sunburnt Australia or a walk in the African woods, we traverse through a stream of timeless questions that our scientific pursuits have sought to answer. Surely a daunting task, indeed the title of the book reeks a bit of hubris, but with a combination of his pat sardonic wit and three years worth of gruelling research ("devoted to reading, researching and finding saintly, patient experts prepared to answer a lot of outstandingly dumb questions") Bryson IMHO pulls it off with flying colours. He picks up subjects as arcane as paleontology, quantum mechanics, geology, chemisty, astronomy, particle physics etc and renders them comprehensible to an average Joe bored stiff of the garden-variety science texts in school. The idea is not simply to discover WHAT we know, but to find out HOW we know it. How do we know what is in the center of the earth, thousands of miles beneath the surface? How can we know the extent and the composition of the universe, or what a black hole is? How can we know where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out? Even if Bryson's verbal capers were left out, the theme itself is enough to get me listening. But the way it is written, the sheer scope of what it covers, and the contagious honesty with which it looks at the universe it unfolds -- this is yet another priceless
offering from Bryson. Whether you are looking for a quick conduit to Intelligence in 24 Hours, or an entertaining colloquial peep into the otherwise close-chested world of high science, this is an invaluable gem for your stash! Highly recommended.
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Summary: Classic Bryson at his best
Review: It's hard to imagine Bill Bryson topping A Walk in the Woods, and perhaps he hasn't - but with A Short History of Nearly Everything, he comes damn close. Undaunted at the prospect of taking on everything in the universe as a topic, Bryson pretty much succeeds in taking us on a journey through his quirky mind with his own insatiable curiosity as a tour guide who both asks and answers questions the rest of us probably never thought to pose.
If you like Bryson, this is a must read. If you've never read him before, well, you'll quickly become a regular reader such as myself, eagerly awaiting each of his books as they come off the press.
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Summary: Bryson is....
Review: brilliant, simply brilliant. He hit his stride with "In a Sunburned Country" and now he's hit one out of the park. Listen to the audio book for even more wonder...
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Summary: Concise, enlightening, enjoyable survey!
Review: A wonderful survey of some of the most fundamental fields of scientific knowledge. This book is for most of us who want to have a decent general grasp and overview of such things as Einstein's theory of relativity, particle physics, geology, cosmology, biology, and sundry other basic science topics. Written in the clear, friendly, and amazingly lucid style of Bill Bryson, the book is a real "keeper".
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Summary: The science lesson you've always wanted
Review: A wonderfully written little trip from the beginning of... well, everything right through to the ascendancy of humans. Bryson's mastery of language and his ability to turn a phrase are put to good use in taking a look at the theories and science behind astrophysics, geology, archeology, paleontology, and several other "ologies" as well. The best part is that Bryson manages to cover all this without being boring or overly breezey. Almost everyone will find some part of this book interesting. Even if you weren't a straight A student in science class back in high school or college, the bits of science you do know are probably woven into the grander tapestry of science and time in a way you'll appreciate.
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Summary: All that stuff we were supposed to have learned, but ...
Review: I am a big fan of Bill Bryson's travelogues. I was therefore surprised when I cam across this, somewhat more weighty, tome. But I am pleased that I picked it up. The author says he didn't do very well in science when he was in school because the teachers and texts seemed to be hiding all the good stuff. Now, as an adult, he's gone after the good stuff. And he's the guy to write it so the rest of us can understand. Not only does he write clearly, but he's very good at explaining as much as a normal person can understand (of relativity, for example), while pointing to the stuff that's weird, and setting aside the stuff that you have to be a specialist to understand. He also is very good at giving credit to people who thought of things but were ignored until someone else came along and took credit. This has happened all too frequently, and it's good for the record to be set straight. If you too were afraid of science, this is a wonderful book. If you already know a lot of this but just like to read enjoyable writing--it's also a wonderful book.
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Summary: Looks promising!
Review: Like everything Bill Bryson writes, this looks like an enjoyable adventure. This time it won't be across far-off or domestic lands, but instead through the fields of science that have placed us here - physics, space, physiology... I got to attend the first stop on the tour for this book, in Brookline, MA, and he had the audience in stitches with his charming, droll, wit. Don't make this your first Bill Bryson book [...] but if you're a fan, definitely (as I will) make it part of your library. UPDATE: I got to enjoy on CD this while driving from Seattle through Oregon this past summer. It's great!
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Summary: Not Short, not Everything, but wonderfully written
Review: I have been addicted to science popularizations since junior high school, beginning with Isaac Asimov and going on to include Robert Jastrow, Carl Sagan, Steven Pinker, Stephen Hawking, Richard Dawkins, Stephen Jay Gould, Roger Penrose, Paul Davies, Murray Gell-Mann, and many others. I have also read a few of Bryson's other books, including The Mother Tongue and Made in America, which I found delightful. However, I was a bit skeptical of this foray into explicating science, since Bryson is no scientist (unlike all the others, possibly excepting Asimov, who gets a special polymath exemption). I was delightfully surprised at this very engaging book. The scope is rather narrower than the title suggests, limited mainly to cosmology, geology, paleontology, and evolution, but there is very little "dumbing down" and the stories of the personalities involved make it a fascinating read. There was a lot of stuff I already knew (and I caught a few minor errors) but I encountered a lot of material that was new to me, and the writing is always engaging and clear.
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