Hands down my favorite science text written by a non-scientist, although I should mention I don't make a habit of seeking out science books written by non-scientists for kicks. Like most (sensible? pragmatic? responsible?) people, I prefer to read about science from people who actually practice science. Bill Bryson is the only exception though because he's an exceptionally gifted writer who just happens to share my sense of humor--that the end is nigh and that maybe is not necessarily such a terrible thing. Terrible for humanity, sure, but not for the planet. We have worn out our welcome about a few thousand years ago, and now we're just too stubborn to admit our time is over. Just kidding...? But... If you don't walk away from this book believing humanity is doomed, because how can we possibly fix all we've ruined, then you are much more optimistic than I am.

I read this book last year and liked it so much that I picked up the audio for a reread.

2.5 Stars
This is probably going to make me sound as thick as two short planks but I didn't like it, I knew going into this book that it was going to be a challenge as Science is not really my preferred bedtime reading but I do think its good to try new things but unfortunately yes this was just hard work for me and I struggled through this one.

But on the plus side I did learn some STUFF just dont ASK me to EXPLAIN it to you and it did encourage discussion with my Nerdy other half which cant be a bad thing and there are quite a few amazing facts in the book and some entertaining stories. I will probably tell the other half that I gave it 5 stars :-)

This book is extremely well written and researched and for those interested in science I am sure this is an amazing read as Bill Bryson travels through time and space to explain the world, the universe and everything. I don't regret picking it up this book and giving it a go and my rating only reflects my reaction to the book and certainly not the quality of the information or how it is presented.

I would like to read something else (less challenging) by this author so perhaps I will pick up another one of his books sometime in the future.

is this informative?

We're not really supposed to be here - the odds are so long.

But, now that we are "here" we're probably doomed, in all likelihood sooner than later. And we kind of deserve it.

Somehow Bryson manages to cheerfully cover those three depressing themes throughout making this is a very fun book! Hard to put down.

Thoroughly enjoyed this, what a gifted writer, and learned a tremendous amount along the way.

This will be a fun re-read many times over!

موجز تاريخ كل شيء تقريباً

رغم الترجمة التي تكبو أحياناً، ورغم ما يقال بأن هناك فصل سقط في الترجمة!! إلا أن هذا كتاب عظيم بحق، عمل مبهر ولذيذ، وضع بيل برايسون هذا الكتاب للإجابة على الأسئلة العلمية التي يجهلها حول الأرض والطبيعة بشكل عام، هذه الأسئلة التي انهالت عليه وهو يحدق في البحر من نافذة طائرة، تحولت إلى رحلة ممتعة، له ولنا، فبرايسون لا يرهقنا بالحقائق العلمية كأنما هو موسوعة، وإنما يدسها لنا في حكايات متشابكة، عن العلم والعلماء في سعيهم للفهم، وبناء كل تلك العلوم من الجذاذات التي بين أيديهم، لهذا تشعر بالاهتمام والتواطؤ ومن ثم بالامتنان لكل تلك الجهود التي قام بها العلماء، ويتحول العلم بالنسبة لك من مادة ثقيلة إلى مادة حية، مشبعة بالإنسان، طموحاته وآلامه وسعيه للحقيقة والمعرفة، هذا الكتاب رحلة ممتعة، لا تفوتوها.

Quanto è grande il nostro pianeta? Come è fatto? Quali leggi ne governano il moto, la natura e i fenomeni?

Per colmare questa lacuna, Bill Bryson decide di partire per un viaggio nel mondo del sapere scientifico, per narrarci la storia dell’universo e farci comprendere, senza difficoltà, la teoria della relatività e le sue conseguenze, i segreti del Big Bang, le leggi dell’evoluzionismo, la comparsa dell’uomo sulla terra, la doppia elica del DNA e molto altro. Bryson ci fa incontrare le personalità che hanno fatto e stanno facendo la storia della scienza, lasciandoci alla fine la sensazione di conoscere meglio il mondo in cui viviamo, ma anche quella, piacevolissima, di avere letto un “romanzo” ricco di sorprese e curiosità.

A prescindere da cosa altro possa essere, a livello chimico la vita è estremamente banale: carbonio, idrogeno, ossigeno e azoto, un po’ di calcio, un goccetto di zolfo e una spolverata di altri elementi molto comuni. Nulla che non si possa trovare nella farmacia sotto casa. Tutto qui, non serve altro. L’unica particolarità degli atomi che costituiscono il nostro corpo è appunto il fatto che costituiscono noi. E questo, ovviamente, è il miracolo della vita.

Bill Bryson con ironia, il gusto per l’aneddoto e per la battuta riesce a far immergere il lettore in un libro ricco di sapere.

La maggior parte dei sistemi stellari esistenti nel cosmo è binaria (ha cioè due soli) il che conferisce una leggera nota di eccentricità alla nostra stella solitaria.

Un libro in realtà non proprio breve come si potrebbe pensare dal titolo visto che conta più di 500 pagine, scritte con un font non grandissimo e poca separazione tra un paragrafo e l’altro.

Breve storia di (quasi) tutto è sicuramente un libro ricco di nozioni e intenso ma assolutamente interessante e, cosa importante, alla portata anche di tutte quelle persone che, come me, non hanno una base scientifica alle spalle. Non è infatti necessario avere lauree e master per comprendere la portata di quello che scrive Bryson.

Noi non vediamo le stelle nella loro forma attuale ma così come erano quando fu emessa la luce che oggi arriva a noi.

Con questo libro l’autore ci illumina sulla storia dell’universo e del nostro pianeta Terra, facendoci scoprire gli studi fatti e i protagonisti di queste scoperte e di come, spesso, siano stati inizialmente ignorati dalla massa di studiosi ed esperti (alcune storie sono divertenti e al tempo stesso parecchio deprimenti, credetemi). Gli argomenti e le materie trattate sono diverse: chimica, fisica, geologia, paleontologia; dinosauri, estinzioni, crosta terrestre, terremoti (non so se andrò mai in Giappone dopo quello che ho letto) e vulcani.

Sebbene Breve storia di (quasi) tutto sia stata una lettura estremamente interessante ed illuminante ho dovuto limitarne la lettura a uno o due capitoli al giorno perché nonostante lo stile di Bryson sia fresco, ironico e divertente, si tratta pur sempre di un saggio scientifico di 500 pagine. All’inizio, quando mi sono messa a leggerlo come un normale “romanzo” mi sono ritrovata affaticata dalla lettura: faticavo a tenere gli occhi aperti nonostante l’interesse e faticavo a proseguire. Quando ho capito che quello, almeno per me, non era il metodo corretto per procedere e mi sono messa a leggerne solo uno o due capitoli al giorno, beh, l’ho divorato in poco tempo.

Ora i microbi stanno ricominciando a vincere la guerra dappertutto: soltanto negli ospedali statunitensi, a causa delle infezioni nosocomiali muoiono ogni anno circa quattordicimila persone. Come osservò James Surowiecki in un articolo per il New Yorker, di fronte alla possibilità di scegliere fra investire nella ricerca di antibiotici (che si assumono una volta al giorno per due settimane) o nella ricerca di antidepressivi (che si assumono una volta al giorno per tutta la vita) le case farmaceutiche hanno optato per questi ultimi, il che certo non ci sorprende. Sebbene alcune molecole siano state migliorate, è ormai dagli anni Settanta che l’industria farmaceutica non propone nuovi antibiotici.

In sostanza, sia se siete studiosi del campo scientifico, sia se siete profani in tutto ciò ma comunque curiosi di sapere la storia del mondo in cui viviamo vi consiglio la lettura di Breve storia di (quasi) tutto di Bill Bryson, e centellinare questo libro sarà forse il modo migliore per apprezzarlo appieno.

This is a wonderful overview of, well, exactly what the title depicts!

There is a degree of story-telling that Bryson utilises that makes the narrative smooth and easy to follow. In fact, the novel reminds me of those great teachers you may of had at school where they would be explaining the material they were supposed to be teaching you but would go off on a tangent about something else before looping back to the aforementioned topic. Bryson does this throughout the novel and combined with his narration and satire, it's all so entertaining!

I love the primary conception of the novel:

'...I was on a long flight across the Pacific, staring idly out the window at moonlit ocean, when it occurred to me with a certain uncomfortable forcefulness that I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on.'

If that statement hit you as hard as it hit me, I would strongly suggest reading this book. His own objective to write this book was to understand himself so do not fret if you are put off simply because you are not acquainted with scientific texts. At the end of the day, the prose considered in this book pretty much affects everyone. Just a basic understanding of atoms, weather, water dipolarity and glacier ice layers I think is a very minimal basis of scientific knowledge to be understood - and really, it's fascinating! I would definitely recommend this to someone who is studying or planning to study science at A Level/Level 3 to get a good basis for their further studies.

I learnt while studying classics that authors (like Bronte and Austen) would utilise the tool of letters so that the reader could be exposed to another set of narrative for better plot development. Bryson is on the same journey as the reader - just a normal guy of next to no predisposition of scientific background simply enquiring about the basics. He uses small intervals where he repeats his inquisitive conversations with scientists and specialists in certain fields to explain certain matters that he would find too difficult. This just makes it feel you're on this big, long journey with Bryson and his guests as tour guides.

I have a couple of criticisms though. At the beginning of the novel, there some beautiful drawings depicting a timeline of the Earth's history and even a little drawing of the Earth's layers in the introduction. However, there are plenty more verbal descriptions of pretty sublime and profound matters but no diagrams to aid them. Of course, you could just Google it and find something like what you're reading but a wider use of diagrams, pictures or drawings would supplement this novel perfectly and increase the understanding even further. Also, I found Bryson to be quite repetitive when there was no need which made it a little tiresome.

However, this book is the best introduction to our planet that ever graced the modern book world (in my opinion and all those who recommended it to me). It's humorous, factually apt and fluent in its composure.

Well done, Bryson, you have accomplished something just as great as those you wrote about.

Big bois. Long bois. Extra extra page bois.

Everyone's heard of them. The Libraries are full of them. But are they worth it?

Click the link for my video review of the big bois in my life.

The Written Review:Want a whirlwind worldwide romance adventure minus the romance? This is the book for you.

This book really does cover nearly everything. From the Big Bang to current life on earth, Bill Bryson does wonderful job of breaking down complex theories and concepts to their essential message:

n  Protons give an atom its identity, electrons its personality.n

Though, sometimes he gets a bit wordy.

n  Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.n

This was such an interesting book to read and I walked away learning so much. This is the sort of book that requires two or three times reading through it to fully understand and digest everything. I can barely comprehend how much time and effort went into research. Truly a masterpiece.

Audiobook Comments:
While he did not narrate his own book, the Richard Matthews does a great job of reading it. Though, this is one of those books that you cannot tune out on without missing something crucial.

This is a great big-picture book. For a fun microhistory, I'd recommend  At Home: A Short History of Private Life also by Bill Bryson.


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Well written as this book definitely has the average reader in mind - as in there's no excessive use of technical language, Bryson sets out to answer some of the big questions of this and earlier ages with the help and/or work of experts. Bryson, whom I would say has been a great representative of the counter forces to the dumb-ing down of the masses movement, with his thoughtful and thought provoking books attempts it again with this, his biggest book yet. I think it is an accessible and interesting read, but not necessarily a book that one sits down and reads over a few days or weeks, it feels more like a very cool reference book that you pop into now and again and never really read all the way through. 6 out of 12.
Author, Bill Bryson

“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result—eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly—in you.”

A Short History of Nearly Everything is not as impossibly far-reaching as the title would indicate. An attempt to cram everything and the kitchen sink into a work intended for the general reader is surely a recipe for failure—or so one might think. Bryson marshals science, history, and philosophy to present a big-picture understanding of our universe from past to present. Extraneous details are filtered out, and mysteries left unexamined, yet it somehow feels complete. Not unlike a film editor who can cut down 24 hours of production material into a feature-length film, he manages to pack a world of wonder and insight into an accessible and entertaining, though relatively lengthy (544-page) tome.

Bryson's preoccupation is less with the rote repetition of facts (though there is that, too) than with conveying just how it is we know what we know. He takes us behind the curtain for a more intimate look at the process of discovery and the strokes of genius essential to that process.

Lengthy and mildly scatterbrained it might be, ASHONE is a pure literary delight. The author's excitement and enthusiasm for the subject matter drip from every page. The sheer joy he receives from learning little gems he missed in high school or being reintroduced to information forgotten long ago is intoxicating. He meets with a wonderful cast of men and women to highlight the personalities behind the stories of discovery. Lone geniuses are a rarity in any field, and science is no exception. Bryson scratches below the surface to meet the individuals who played prominent roles yet went unrecognized.

In taking the long view, Bryson engages some of science's toughest questions. Everything from the Big Bang to man's (relatively terse) evolutionary past is presented here, with a nod to some of the more eminent and intriguing figures from each field. I particularly appreciated that after a concept was explained, he immediately followed up with the most obvious question in response. It really helps the lay reader navigate these complex topics.

Bryson spends a good amount of time on natural disasters, describing the assorted ways they shaped the history of our planet. His frequently humorous analogies help you understand their sheer scale and the havoc left in their wake. Ice ages, earthquakes, supervolcanoes, and pandemics are each showcased in breathtaking detail in some of the most harrowing events on planetary record. Given all the chaos that has besieged our planet, it becomes soberingly clear by the book's end that we humans—or any life for that matter—are incredibly lucky to be here. In light of all that can go wrong and has gone wrong, it's remarkable there is any life left to comment on the tragedy and storied disarray. I commend Bryson for demonstrating how truly diminutive our time here on Earth is relative to the universe's imponderably vast history.

Bryson should also be applauded for pointing out places where our inquiry has hit a brick wall or those areas that remain imperfectly understood. The fact that we have accumulated such vast storehouses of knowledge over the last few centuries does not mean there are no mysteries left to explore. Indeed, dozens of questions both big and small remain unanswered, and new discoveries have a tendency to open up several more. We can both be proud about what we have uncovered to date and humble about the many uncharted possibilities that surely await us.

Fast and Loose with Science

There are a few caveats, however, with respect to some of the finer details. In one place he describes particles with "spin" as actually rotating about an axis (they are not). This erroneous conception of elementary particles dates back to the 1920s, when George Uhlenbeck and Samuel Goudsmit interpreted the motion of electrons as self-rotation around their own axis. A few years later, Paul Dirac pointed out that electrons could not be spinning according to the rules of orbital angular momentum because the rate at which their surface would have to be spinning (to produce the magnitude of the magnetic moment) would have to exceed the speed of light, which would violate the special theory of relativity.

In another place Bryson says that quantum entanglement is a violation of relativity (it is not). Relativity tells us that nothing can travel faster than the speed of light, and this applies even to things with zero mass, such as information or other electromagnetic radiation. Entanglement says that measuring a particle in one place can instantly affect a particle somewhere else. However, this effect is constrained by the cosmic speed limit. On p. 42 of his book n  What Is Relativity?n, Jeffrey Bennett responds to this notion:

"However, while laboratory experiments suggest that this instantaneous effect can really happen, current understanding of physics tells us that it cannot be used to transmit any useful information from one place to the other; indeed, if you were at the location of the first particle and wanted to confirm that the second had been affected, you'd need to receive a signal from its location, and that signal could not travel faster than light."

Bryson also claims that the production of black holes within particle accelerators like the Large Hadron Collider could destroy the world, when in fact, these microscopic black holes would disintegrate in nanoseconds thanks to Hawking radiation. On p. 154 of the same book, Bennett also debunks this largely media-driven fear:

"Some physicists have indeed proposed scenarios in which such micro black holes could be produced in the Large Hadron Collider, but even if they are right, there's nothing to worry about. The reason is that while the LHC can generate particles from greater concentrations of energy than any other machine that humans have ever built, nature routinely makes such particles. Some of those particles must occasionally rain down on Earth, so if they were dangerous, we would have suffered the consequences long ago.

In case you are wondering how a micro black hole could be "safe," the most likely answer has to do with a process called Hawking radiation...Hawking showed that the laws of quantum physics imply that black holes can gradually "evaporate" in the sense of having their masses decrease, even while nothing ever escapes from within their event horizons. The rate of evaporation depends on a black hole's mass, with lower-mass black holes evaporating much more rapidly. The result is that while the evaporation rate would be negligible for black holes with star-like masses or greater, micro black holes would evaporate in a fraction of a second, long before they could do any damage."

He may have consulted with experts, but the manuscript could have benefited from additional fact-checking. That said, although the book was published in 2003, there is little that is out of date as of this writing—the confirmed interbreeding between Neanderthals and Denisovans being one notable discovery of late that adds greater texture to the stories recounted here. I also feel there could (and should) have been a greater emphasis on climate change; Bryson seemed to skirt over it whenever a related topic arose, and it's not clear whether this was intentional.

Closing Thoughts

The content in ASHONE is something I think everyone should know and be exposed to, and it's hard to imagine the material presented with greater alacrity than it is here. The passion and unbridled enthusiasm on display frequently approaches Sagan-esque proportions, in a style redolent of the signature series Cosmos, which is about the highest praise a work in this genre could hope to achieve. Though I found a few errors—and suspect the average grad student in one of a number of the subjects covered could spot a handful more—the book is nevertheless a praiseworthy stab at science writing for the layperson. Bryson set an ambitious task for himself and ultimately delivered a lively, accessible, and mostly scientifically faithful, albeit cursory, proem to the history of the universe as we know it today.

“Even now as a species, we are almost preposterously vulnerable in the wild. Nearly every large animal you can care to name is stronger, faster and toothier than us. Faced with attack, modern humans have only two advantages. We have a good brain, with which we can devise strategies, and we have hands with which we can fling or brandish hurtful objects. We are the only creature that can harm at a distance. We can thus afford to be physically vulnerable.” (p. 447)

Note: This review is republished from my official website.

Дълга история разказана добре. Множество истории под едно небе.

Много добре написана научно-популярна книга, която може да се превърне и в настолна. Изяснява някои основни положения без да доскучае и за момент. Да си призная през последните 2-3 години чета много повече non-fiction и ми действа чудесно да ги редувам с fiction.

Тук започваме с астрофизика, после геология, химия, биология, таксономия и тнт, и тнт. мултидисциплинарна популярна наука. Положително отбелязвам, че съставителят не е учен, което му е дало нужната перспектива, така че да е интересно на всеки средсностатистически читател (ако такова понятие има). И освен това си личи, че е любопитен човек. Също, че е почтителен към труда на учените. Много подходящ разказвачески тон. Ако бях чел такива книги преди 20 години, много по-интересни щяха да ми се струват предмети като Физика, Химия и Биология. Сякаш нарочно се опитваме да направим скучни науки, които могат да са много интересни. Физика и химия ми бяха най-слабите предмети, а откак съм завършил - ми е много интересно да чета книги, свързани с тях. По Биология имах по една дузина шестици на срок, но пък ни караха да учим всичко като стихотворение на изуст. Сега почти нищо не помня от учебния материал. Обаче помня почти всичко прочетено в "Sapiens", книгите от Мичио Каку, Нийл деГрас Тайсън и др.

Добавям и тази книга към категорията. Да, не е от учен, като гореспоменатите, но и това си има своите предимства. Да, почти нямаше абсолютно нова за мен информация, но понякога имаме нужда просто от още един цялостен преглед. Като стил си го представете като популярната поредица "Космос" - фундаментите и историите за техните откриватели. Плюс добро чувство за хумор - уместно като количество и като тон.

Ако имате (или сте) подрастващи - хубаво е да я прочетат, както и Sapiens на Харари и останалите добри образци от популярната наука. Може да гледате с друго око на предметите в училище и дори да ви се сторят интересни. Ще ми се и съставителите на учебници също да я препоръчам. А и във времена като сегашните без директно училище - добър заместител.

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?