A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's summation of life, the universe, and everything, a nice little easy-reading science book containing an overview of things every earthling should be aware of.

As I've repeatedly mentioned over the years, every time one of the casual-readers tells me I have to read something, like Harry Potter or the DaVinci Code, I dig my feet in deeper and resolve to never read it. This is one of the occasions I should have shaved a decade off of my stubbornness and caved in right away.

Bryson covers a wide range of topics, from the formation of the universe to the evolution of man for our apelike forebears, and all points in between. Atoms? Cells? These are just stops along the enlightenment highway that Bill Bryson has paved! He touches upon quantum physics, geology, the size of our solar system, the year without a summer, and other topics innumerable.

The writing style is so accessible that I have to think I'd be some kind of scientists if my high school and college text books were written by Bill Bryson. His easy, breezy style makes even the most complicated topics easier to digest.

It's not often that I come away from a book having felt like I learned something new, criminal techniques from my usual reads excepted. Bryson has succeeded where many have failed before him. He has used chicanery to get me to read nonfiction and enjoy myself while doing it. 4.5 out of 5 stars.

In six units, the author gives us a wonderful survey of what we know or think we know about the universe and life on Earth. If you loved science as a subject in school but were daunted by the formulas or maths or taxonomies, this is the book you wish you’d had to get an idea about what the scientists and experts think about the natural world we live in and on, who we are and where we come from. An absolute joy to read from an author with huge capacities to make anything interesting and keep you fully engaged with little dashes of humor and fun.

(Unit names are my own)
1.tIt’s a Big Place
Down the road from me a little ways near the Jersey shore is where the echo of the Big Bang was first heard, winning the Nobel Prize for the young astronomers annoyed by the hiss interfering with their intended experiment on communications antennae. The single blinding pulse “from nothing, our universe begins” postulated as the singularity, is where we (and the book) begins, expanding out into the galaxies then coming back into the solar system and Earth.

2.tMen Like Measuring Things
How old the universe and the earth are, how big the earth is, how much it weighs, the temperatures of things, what shapes orbits are, what are elements or fossils, what tools or processes to use to measure whatever, how to beat (or beat down) the guys you don’t agree with (or stole from)…. We get the human (all too human) and the science side of things in this great section.

3.tDon’t Believe Your Eyes
“Disruption” is a thing that didn’t start with the Internet and tech companies. Bryson gives us a great example from physics when Michelson and Morley proved that luminiferous ether, “stable, invisible, weightless, frictionless”… “conceived by Descartes, embraced by Newton, and venerated by nearly everyone ever since…” was an “unfortunately wholly imaginary medium.” Then real disruption comes along with Einstein, Planck, relativity, quantum theory and how the atom and sub-atomic particles interact, to where Bohr remarked at a conference about a new theory “that the question was not whether it was crazy, but whether it was crazy enough.”

4.tBack on Planet Earth
Asteroids, volcanoes, geology, archeology, tectonics, and how they all relate (at least in how theories get developed and proved). Also plenty of reasons to fear Yellowstone Park.

5.tThat’s Life
The longest unit, “Life Itself” covers what we know about life on earth in its many variations, from single cell to complex lifeforms, how it rose, what it’s made of, what its purpose is, from the beginnings of Earth through many extinctions and ages, how Earth supports it and how hard it is to be sure of what we (think we) know.

6.tWe Haven’t Been Here That Long
Our second and a half of evolutionary time and place on the planet has given us an outsize chance of changing things. Talking about extinctions, Bryson writes, “We have been chosen, by fate or providence or whatever you wish to call it. As far as we can tell, we are the best there is. We may be all there is. It’s an unnerving thought that we may be the living universe’s supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously.” “…because we have been so careless about looking after things.” We got a lot of lucky breaks over zillions of years to make it here. We need to be better than just relying on lucky breaks to continue our survival. (My preachiness, not his.)

574 pages, 112 (additional) pages of Notes and Index, all very enjoyable.

I didn't realize this book was about nearly everything in the history of science rather than everything in the history of society, but that's okay. Bryson explains all with a flourish of wit, and with an eye for the personal oddities or ridiculous perversities of humanity's greatest scientists. For example, '"of all the disciplines in science, paleoanthropology boasts perhaps the largest share of egos', say the authors of Java Man--a book, it may be noted, that itself devotes long wonderfully unselfconscious passages to attacks on the inadequacies of others, in particular the authors' former close colleague Donald Johnson" (p. 551).

I was never any good at science. At the grammar school I attended we were shepherded into laboratories for lessons on physics, chemistry and biology. These were scary places; I’d never been anywhere like this before. The physics lab had gas taps and Bunsen burners and the walls were filled with incomprehensible charts. The chemistry lab held rows of specimen jars, more gas taps and burners and an underlying smell of something unpleasant and vaguely dangerous. The biology lab displayed pictures and diagrams of human body parts and there were constant rumours of creature dissections and other nasty things to come. Beyond the physical fears it was clear that each subject had its own language. I was fluent in none of them. I ceased study on all of these subjects at the earliest opportunity.

But I left school feeling that I’d missed out on part of my core education. And I had. So I’d had my eye on this book for some time. I’ve long been a fan of Bryson’s insightful yet amusing take on the world. Surely his commentary of all things scientific couldn’t be too painful, could it? The book walks through just about every significant scientific discovery from the creation of the universe to the present day. Well, not quite the present day, given this book was published some fourteen years ago. But given the universe is currently thought to be some 13.7 billion years old, I’m comfortable it covers the mother lode.

The list of sciences included is exhaustive, I spotted whole bunch but I’m also convinced I missed a few. My list comprises:

Anthropology
Astronomy
Botany
Cosmology
Chemistry
Ecology
Geology
Human Biology
Meteorology
Oceanography
Physics
Zoology

It’s fascinating stuff – staggering, in fact. I’d heard of the Big Bang theory, of course, but I’d never delved into the detail of it. The explanation here is clear and concise - it’s still mind bending, but I was able to follow most of the explanation. There were some sections where the detail did become a little heavy – the account of plant life being categorised lumbered on interminably – but on the whole the pacing felt spot on. It’s also very well structured, with relevant topics being grouped together. It flowed well and told a compelling story.

As I worked my way through this book, the thought that kept leaping to the fore was that these brilliant theories and discoveries came about largely as a result of scientists and non-scientists working something out via observation, association and calculation – the kicker being that nearly all of these milestone events predate computers, email and the internet. It’s incredible. In one example twenty years was spent on a calculation using pencil, paper and a slide rule. The same calculation could now be completed using a computer in a single day.

Yes, because of its publication date there are a few recent finds that aren’t included - confirmation of the existence of the Higgs boson particle in 2012 is one example – but I really don’t think it missed out too much of any significance. For anyone looking for a comprehensive but easy to follow history of scientific discovery, from the very beginning, look no further. I can’t recommend this book highly enough.

“If this book has a lesson, it is that we are awfully lucky to be here-and by 'we' I mean every living thing. To attain any kind of life in this universe of ours appears to be quite an achievement. As humans we are doubly lucky, of course: We enjoy not only the privilege of existence but also the singular ability to appreciate it and even, in a multitude of ways, to make it better. It is a talent we have only barely begun to grasp.”
This is a sort of rough guide to science told in the form of a history of the universe, a history of earth and a history of life. Bryson covers the history of science: the theories, debates and speculations about all that he covers from the beginning of the universe onwards. There is a caveat or two. It was written over twenty years ago so it is bound to be out of date and there is so much in here that there are bound to be a few errors. There’s lots about atomic particles and a great deal about life and how it developed.
It's an interesting read and is laced with Bryson’s trademark humour:
“There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.”
“In France, a chemist named Pilatre de Rozier tested the flammability of hydrogen by gulping a mouthful and blowing across an open flame, proving at a stroke that hydrogen is indeed explosively combustible and that eyebrows are not necessarily a permanent feature of one's face.”
There are also lots of interesting anecdotes as well. It’s informative without being over complex, but you do have to get on with Bryson’s breezy style.

There are some things that make you like a book and some things that put you off. For me, this one had more of the latter. I can understand why Bryson wrote this. A book on science, with the difficulty taken out makes it all the more accessible to the reader. What is traded off to achieve this, is the kind of scientific rigour which makes the subject matter so enticing in the first place. Bryson all too frequently fails to explain statements made or explanations given for scientific phenomena. This leaves me thinking, what is the point?

There is some interesting history and some of the characters are fascinating (hence two stars rather than one). But not enough to make 423 pages interesting to read. This is science 'extra-lite', for those who don't have the desire for knowledge which would drive them to read a scientific book with more substance.

I guess the final conclusion would be that the chapters are disparate, with no clear progression from one to the next. A hodge podge of trivia, which I would defy anyone to remember, is the result.

With so much popular science out there, it is hard to excuse Bill Bryson for penning something that seems to lack everything I would want from a science book. No doubt others would disagree but for me, this one was a bit of a waste of time.

A Short History of Nearly Everything
If you feel you just don’t know the basics of modern science, what would you do? Well, if like most people you find textbooks mind-numbingly dull or haven’t read a science book since high school, you probably would not do what Bill Bryson did. He has taken it upon himself to basically teach himself about these subjects, and then write an entire book in an approachable and humorous style that will keep you entertained and…wait for it…actually interested in science again. It’s an ambitious project and we should be very grateful for him making the effort.

This book is a conversational primer on all the Big Topics:

1) the origin of space, time, and universe (The Big Bang)
2) the possibility of alien life in the universe and whether we will ever encounter it
3) how all the big scientific discoveries occurred in history and who made them (turns out brilliant scientists are often eccentric, frequently secretive and paranoid, have petty rivalries, and even when they do reveal their findings, are generally derided or ignored)
4) the origins of organic life, single and multi-celled
5) the proliferation of animal and plant species
6) the long process of developing sentience
7) the very contentious debate over how primates eventually evolved into Neanderthals and Homo Erectus, and where this happened first - Africa or Asia.

Separately, he also dives deep into the microscopic world, with a fascinating review of the basics of chemistry, subatomic particles, neutrons, quarks, etc. Much like Carl Sagan and Neil De Grasse Tyson, he is skilled at making big scientific concepts clearer, even if they remain extremely hypothetical and abstract, like quantum mechanics and string theory etc. This is all the more impressive as he is not a scientist like they are, and is best known for his whimsical travel books. I also discovered he had been chancellor at Durham University in England from 2005 to 2011, so he’s got a fascinating life path.

Having been a lifelong reader of SF, I myself go through periods where I feel like I really need to know more about the origins of Life, The Universe, and Everything. In the past, this meant reading a number of books on quantum physics and evolution, such as:

1) A Briefer History of Time and The Grand Design - Stephen Hawking

2) A Universe from Nothing - Lawrence Krauss

3) The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence for Evolution - Richard Dawkins

4) The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal - Jared Diamond

This time, I’ve been inspired to tackle two books on quantum physics and String Theory that are notoriously difficult:

1) The Elegant Universe: Superstrings, Hidden Dimensions, and the Quest for the Ultimate Theory - Brian Greene

2) Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos - Michio Kaku

Wish me luck!

A sign that a book is really, really, really gripping you is when you find yourself talking to people about it. And by ‘talking to people about it’, I don’t just mean recommending that they read it, but actually spouting out things you’ve read in its pages, developing arguments from what you’ve learnt and generally just crow-barring whole tracts of knowledge into conversations which, left to their own devices, would have happily meandered elsewhere.

Such a book is Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Everything’.

For the last week or so I’ve been reading it I’ve felt a little like E.L.Wisty, talking in Peter Cook’s boring, nasal voice about this marvellous book I’ve read and how it contains all these interesting facts.

This is a book which tries, and for the most part succeeds, in making very complex areas of science meaningful to a layman such as I. So we have the creation of the universe, the vastness of space, the dawn of life, the changing environments of our planet, the development of life, various extinctions and the complex evolution of man. It’s incredibly illuminating stuff, an array of complex theories broken down and put into reach of those of us who don’t have PHDs (although I’m only slightly more au fait with quantum physics than I was before I started reading that section – but then there are quantum physicists who freely admit they don’t properly understand it.) Bryson grabs the attention by turning it almost into a history lesson of discoveries , so we have thumbnail sketches of Darwin, Halley, Einstein and other great pioneers – many of whom I’d never heard of. That combined with Bryson’s eye for the outstandingly curious, then this ends up as constantly amusing and astounding read.

Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to bother some passers-by, I’m in possession of some facts that they might find very interesting.

I almost wanted to smack myself for not reading this book earlier. Having said that, since I've only started on audiobooks about 2-years back, perhaps it's not such a bad thing, because I believe with all my heart that I enjoyed this much more with the superb narration.

Firstly, A Short History of Nearly Everything is a title which is ambitious by any measure. Really? Nearly everything? Bill Bryson sure did a nifty job at creating this riveting read which I can describe alternately, though not perfectly, as 'A layman's summary of leading scientific thoughts, discoveries and events that shaped our understanding of the planet Earth as well as the life which resides therein.' And the truth is that even now, we are still pretty far from truly understanding or knowing very much.

Bryson's writing style can be described as eloquently delightful. A topic such as this can easily be dry in its rendition, instead Bryson has injected an insouciant dry sense of humour therein. He also has a way of putting together the most amusing or incredibly apt yet elegant descriptions. An example which I loved was how he described a person who was tall, thin and not very nice as 'a lanky assemblage of shortcomings.'

The audio narration was delivered with such deadpan flair that combined with the author's style it made for many hours of great entertainment. I've caught myself laughing aloud so many times that passersby must have thought me a bit mad.

I particularly appreciated the real life analogies that helped to explain scientific measurements which were either infinitesimally too small or too large for the every day person to comprehend. The flow of the narrative from one scientific branch to another was almost seamless and it was written in a manner that actually makes the title of the book relevant.

In short, this book was both enlightening and enjoyable. I highly recommend this to anyone who has even a little interest in science.

*3.5 stars *

This book explains everything from a little proton atom to Bing Bang's theory.

It tells more about popular science than the history of everything.

I found it interesting and also challenging to understand all the science jargon and theories.

For those who want to know more about our universal, I recommend you to read this book.

I like the history of Charles Darwin's life particularly and the discovery of his theory of evolution.

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