A Short History of Nearly Everything

· Sold by Crown
4.3
496 reviews
Ebook
560
Pages
Eligible

About this ebook

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.

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trailwell, 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 understandand, if possible, answerthe 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.

Ratings and reviews

4.3
496 reviews
A Google user
September 12, 2007
This focuses on a scientific history and is very witty. I especially like the way he tells stories about scientists and how they discovered things--even if he's made some of these things up (it's possible), it makes for a good read. It's written by an average guy who has interviewed experts in a lot of different fields, so the science may be off sometimes, but he gets you laughing.
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A Google user
“Wow this book is incredible. At close to 500 pages Bryson covers everything from the moment the universe expanded from the intensely dense matter that was (aka the big bang) to man’s origin. Reading this book has impacted the way I look at everything from bacteria to asteroids.” — Alex
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A Google user
January 29, 2010
A truly enjoyable read for anybody interested in science or natural history. I particularly enjoyed the anecdotes showing what 'characters' some of history's greatest science people were. Bryson also does an impressive job in conveying the meaning of how big or small certain numbers really are... no easy task. The book loses its rhythm a bit in the last few chapters on biology and human evolution, but a small price to pay for a great read.
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About the author

Bill Bryson's bestselling books include A Walk in the WoodsThe Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and A Short History of Nearly Everything (which won the Aventis Prize in Britain and the Descartes Prize, the European Union's highest literary award). He was chancellor of Durham University, England's third oldest university, from 2005 to 2011, and is an honorary fellow of Britain's Royal Society.

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