Rating: 
Summary: Very enjoyable read
Review: This book presented information in an informative and often whimiscal style. Bill Bryson presents information and stories in most of the scientific disciplines and he does so with wit. I am a Biologist and often I enjoy getting away from the intensity of reading journal articles to books such as Bill Bryson has written. I have read this book twice and recommend it highly.
Rating: 
Summary: Very Good and Informative Book. Only one complaint.
Review: Mr. Bryson's book does its job: Explain how things are. Complicated? Some of them are, but they are explained in the easiest possible way. It would be impossible to explain supernovi or black holes in a less succint and simple way.Just one word of correction for Mr. Bryson (and hence my one star reduction). In disc one, you mention the triangulation efforts to measure the earth's dimensions, and you say they were done in Peru's Mt. Chimborazo. Well.....Mt. Chimborazo belongs to Ecuador and it has never even been in dispute with Peru. I hope there are no more misinformation bits like this one. Still, I enjoyed the book a lot and would recommend it to anyone.
Rating:
Summary: An expression of awe and awareness
Review: It takes a range of talents to compress the history of the universe into 500 pages - prose skill, comprehension and presumption. Bryson possesses all three in surpassing quantity. He's brought them all to bear in this impressive work. He adds a strong dose of enthusiasm to his account. This additional element from a man previously rarely exhibiting a feeling for science imparts in this book a sense of his awe at what research has achieved in recent years. While his awe sometimes leads him to abundant superlatives, we can forgive his exuberance as an expression of discovery. He wants us to share both his wonder and his realisation that science is comprehensible. We must respect his objective, since it's important in our lives. After a string of entertaining but mildly useful travel books, Bryson offers the grandest tour of all - a journey from the beginning of time. His "In A Sunburnt Country" gives an account of his visit to Shark Bay in Western Australia. His awe at being in the presence of ancient stromatilites is reflected in his portrayal of life's history. Opening Part V, with the observation that "it isn't easy being an organism" he summarises what conditions must prevail to allow life to come into being and survive. Those stromatilites poisoned the atmosphere for early life forms, he reminds us. Only a special few survived to evolve to become us. We often think of ourselves as "carbon-based" life. Bryson suggests counting any 200 atoms in your body - only 19 of them will be carbon. Bryson tracks the threats life has confronted and survived. Deep-sea pressure, intense heat - some creatures can't survive unless it's hotter than we can tolerate - and the vagaries of climate and topography. A wandering planetary orbit incites an ice age that nearly eliminates life. A wandering asteroid annuls a multi-million year reptilian global empire. Two continents, long separated, join through a narrow isthmus of land. The resulting change in ocean currents dried Africa, shrinking its forests and leading an ape to become bipedal and brainy. All of which led to the creature that wrote this book - and others reading it. And both creatures, along with all others, must survive on the 0.036 per cent of fresh water available to us. The remainder, except for a few tenuous clouds, is locked up in ice.
If Bryson's travel books reassure us about places we might visit, this book reassures us that science, although demanding and seemingly mysterious, is accessible to us. This is a fine place to start. He's interviewed many scientists and read widely. His excellent bibliography at the end reflects his efforts and the state of various fields of science. It is wonderfully up-to-date. The Index, on the other hand, needs some serious attention. Those stromatilites and their location at Shark Bay, so important to Bryson elsewhere, fail to appear in the Index [it's page 299 in the text]. It would be churlish to fault the lack of illustrations - the scope for selection is simply too vast. Still . . . [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
Rating:
Summary: Well-written and quite enjoyable
Review: This book is more in line with Bryson's "The Mother Tongue" about the English language. So if you are expecting humor, you may want to choose some of his other titles. If you want to learn a ton of stuff, read this. Over the years, I have read a lot of Sagan, Gould, Lederman, etc. and Bryson does a great job of bringing their best ideas together plus many more. I enjoyed his book greatly. I find it especially interesting how he weaves the story about we humans muddling through just about everything all the while the universe is unwittingly trying to snuff us out. It puts things in perspective.
Overall, I'm very impressed at Bryson's accomplishment with this work and recommend it without reservation.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Easy Reading
Review: Thought this book was going to be a bit easier to read. I don't recommend this book to someone who is looking for some easy reading on "A Short History of Nearly Everything". The layout is way to tight and you cannot find info on any particular subject easily. Sorry Mr. Bryson.....I guess it's just not for me or the Father's in my life. I had bought 4 of them for Father's Day gifts and had to return all of them.
Rating: 
Summary: A Short History of Worthless Information
Review: If you are an intellectual snob of the highest order who likes impressing other intellectual snobs with quirky and unusual historical anecodes at university dinner parties, then by god, this book is for you. On the other hand, if you are a casual history and science buff who likes to understand the big picture, and not necessarily every name, date, and minor story along the way, then this book is a total waste of money. This book is little more than a encyclopedia of what most people would consider useless information. Bryson speeds through literally hundreds of names and events, most of which you have never heard of, nor will ever hear of again, even in the presence of other history buffs/teachers. Worst of all, his humor is of the sort that can ONLY appeal to snobbish intellectuals and professors. All too often, Bryson gives significant figures and events only small bits of print, before moving hastily on to a series of entirely obscure people, whose contributions were not necessarily significant in their own right in any way. Indeed, a significant portion of this book is devoted to relatively unimportant people whose only value was that they in some way or another had a domino affect on someone more noteworthy. The pace at which this book moves from one worthless anecdote/person to another is so fast that only those with photographic memories will be able to retain more than 10% after reading this book. All in all, I would say that the worthless anecdotes outweigh the truly historical events and figures by about 20 to 1 in this book. At minimum. Most people should not waste their money if they really want to learn the most important things about history and science. A final note. I was not seeking a book chock full of complicated science when I read this book. On the other hand, I was hoping for a book that generally focused on all the highy points of scientific history, so that I could forge a roadmap in my own mind. Instead, this book is so polluted with the meaninglesss information that it became impossible to walk away with the roadmap of understanding that I was looking for.
Rating:
Summary: Fascinating Science for non-Geeks
Review: A great book for putting "science" in entertaining and relatively easy to understand terms. I was constantly finding myself truly excited by what was being written. This book puts the amazing grandness of the universe into perspective, showing what a miracle it really is that we exist at all, no less that we exist as the highest known form of life. It covers physics, chemistry, biology, geology, paleantology, etc. in a way that ties together and keeps the rader very interested. This is not your college text book. Bryson makes (re)learning fun.
Rating:
Summary: An Excellent Primer on Science for the Layperson
Review: Popularizers of science abound: Isaac Asimov, Marcus Chown, Richard Dawkins, Paul Davies, Timothy Ferris, Stephen Jay Gould, Carl Sagan, and Steven Weinberg, to name a few. Add another name to the list: Bill Bryson. In A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bryson, who lives in Hanover, New Hampshire, has written a lucid work on, well, just about everything: physics, biology, chemistry, zoology, paleontology, astronomy, cosmology, geology, genetics, meteorology, oceanography, and taxonomy. From "the Big Bang" (the beginning of the universe) to "the Big Birth" (the appearance of life on Earth), Bryson translates the arcane, esoteric mysteries of science into comprehensible language, and does so with wit, wisdom, sharp-eyed observations, and hilarious comments. He shows that science need not be boring; it can be fun. In the Introduction, Bryson confesses that not long ago he didn't know what a proton was, didn't know a quark from a quasar. Appalled by his ignorance of his own planet, Bryson determined to take a crash course in science, and for three years he devoted himself intensively to reading books and journals dealing with science, and pestering scientific authorities with his "dumb questions." This book is the result of his project. By reading Bryson we learn that a physicist is the atoms' way of thinking about atoms and that a human being is a gene's way of making other genes. Whether writing of nematode worms or Cameron Diaz, Bryson uses analogies and anecdotes that help make science accessible, and less intimidating, to laypersons. The German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900)said, "The closer one gets to a subject, the more problematic it becomes." The truth of this aphorism also applies to the baffling questions of science. Things get a bit bizarre both in the macrocosmos (such as the superstring theory that postulates a universe with at least eleven dimensions) and the microcosmos (such as quantum physics that describes the quirky behavior of quarks, the erratic behavior of subatomic particles). According to Bryson, some of the things scientists say begins to sound worryingly like the sort of thoughts that would make you edge away if conveyed to you by a stranger on a park bench. Matters in physics have now reached such a pitch that it is almost impossible for nonscientists to discriminate between the legitimately weird and the outright crackpot. Alexander von Humboldt observed: "There are three stages in a scientific discovery: first, people deny that it is true; then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person." Bryson rehabilitates many of these unsung thinkers by throwing the spotlight on overlooked and underappreciated scientists.
In spite of the brilliant contributions of scientists such as Sir Isaac Newton, Albert Einstein, and Charles Darwin, many of the "facts" about the universe and life on Earth owe as much to supposition and speculation as to science. Bryson devotes an intriguing chapter to Charles Darwin's theory of evolution, as explained in two seminal works, On the Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life (1859) and The Descent of Man and Selection in Relation to Sex (1871). Trouble is, the mechanism of natural selection ("Darwin's singular idea") needed a "deeper" explanatory mechanism. Not to worry. Thanks to the pioneering work of Gregor Mendel on dominant and recessive "genes" (Mendel himself never used the word) and the decoding of the "double helix" of DNA by James Watson, Francis Crick, and Maurice Wilkins, the mechanism of Darwin's natural selection has been found, an "engine" that powers the evolutionary process. Interestingly, the DNA code reveals that human beings are 98.4 percent genetically indistinguishable from the modern chimpanzee. There is more difference between a zebra and a horse, or between a dolphin and a porpoise, than there is chimpanzees and humans. Readers well-versed in science may grumble that there's nothing much new here. However, Bryson wrote this book not for professionals but for laypersons. A Short History of Nearly Everything is an excellent primer for "the person in the street" wanting a (largely) comprehensible overview of science.
Rating:
Summary: Bill Bryson seems to cover it all in just this one volume!
Review: Thank goodness Bill Bryson has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Here I thought he just walked all over the world and then wrote about it --- fortunately not. I've read about half a dozen of his books: A WALK IN THE WOODS, NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, NOTES FROM A BIG COUNTRY, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, even a dictionary he wrote. Not one of them failed to elicit embarrassing giggles, often at highly inconvenient, and public, times. So I jumped at the chance to read A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING. I mean, just look at the title! By the time I'd finished the Prologue, I was running to my husband exclaiming how incredible this book was going to be. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the content, but written the way it is, it undeniably makes learning fun. While his travelogue humor is much more likely to elicit wild bouts of guffaws, Bryson speckles A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING with amusingly constructed sentences and an occasional observation on the absurdity of what he has singled out to share with us. Bryson cements the facts with quirky personalities and places. Lord Kelvin, for instance, father of the temperature scale that bears his name, virtually leaps alive on the pages, as do Richter, Pasteur and a host of others. Biographical trivia personalizes these gods of science and history. Did you know that Albert Einstein failed his college entrance tests the first try? That little factoid should make you feel better the next time your boss scoffs derisively at your presentation. One of the chapters includes a fascinating look at the life and work of Charles Darwin, distilled down to the intriguing parts and expanded upon with charmingly obscure odd morsels. Here's a good one: after reading Darwin's ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, an editor of the British Quarterly Review politely suggested he write on a subject that might be of more interest to a large audience, say a book about pigeons. Aside from an abundance of famous names, you'll encounter some key minds wrapped in lesser-known countenances. For example, have you ever heard of the Reverend William Buckland? Likely not, but he made some exciting discoveries among the fossils of yore. How about his friend, Gideon Algernon Mantell, a country doctor and amateur paleontologist? You can find out about this man's tragic life in the shadows of a great discovery he made. When Bryson isn't treating his readers to an intimate look inside some eccentric scientists' lives, he's wowing us with some truly staggering figures --- the number of atoms it takes to build a pinhead; the distance, in terms we can almost grasp, of Pluto from where you sit at your computer right now; the depth of the Earth's crust, or simply its age. (I can tell you without giving the plot away that it is very old.) A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING starts with the birth of the universe and the creation of the Earth, and then carries through evolution, the discovery of elements, the counting of comets, the makeup of chromosomes and DNA, the mysteries of the seas, the composition of the air, and potential --- and historic --- natural disasters, to name but a few of the subjects covered. I can't imagine what Mr. Bryson will tackle next. It seems he has covered literally everything in just this one volume. But I look forward to his future undertaking with unabashed eagerness. --- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
Rating:
Summary: A Short History Of Everything
Review: What a terrific book! This may be the best armchair book on science I have ever read. Mr. Bryson does what no school books ever do --- explains science in a way that is relevant to non-scientists. He tells you the official story, but often goes on to tell you the untold story about the "small-time" guy who made a new discovery first, but for some reason, never got the credit. It tends to remind me a lot of another book called "West Point: Character Leadership... Thomas Jefferson" I recently read by a "small-time" guy (Remick) that, as far as I know, is the first to tell an untold story about the founding of the USA and West Point and Thomas Jefferson, who, like Mr. Bryson, explains the history and philosophy of humankind in a way that is relevant to non-historians, non-philosophers. In "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Mr. Bryson sets the record straight whenever he can by giving credit where credit is due. This book is a trip through the history of science. Take the trip. I guarantee you will enjoy it. And, I recommend you also take a trip through the history of philosophy (with Remick) when you finish Mr. Bryson's wonderful book. You'll then have a short history of everything.
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