Amazon.com Review
From primordial
nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly
Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out.
To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses
hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with
luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him,
who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to
appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest
particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his
distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though
A Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and
covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads
something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a
plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of
our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into
larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself."
Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of
Life and Trilobite) and these
interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of
science's best and most embarrassing fights--Cope
vs. Marsh, Conway
Morris vs. Gould--that he finds literary
gold. --Therese Littleton --This text refers to the
Hardcover
edition.
From Publishers Weekly
As the title suggests, bestselling author Bryson (In a Sunburned
Country) sets out to put his irrepressible stamp on all things
under the sun. As he states at the outset, this is a book about
life, the universe and everything, from the Big Bang to the
ascendancy of Homo sapiens. "This is a book about how it happened,"
the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being
nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of
that something turned into us, and also what happened in between
and since." What follows is a brick of a volume summarizing moments
both great and curious in the history of science, covering already
well-trod territory in the fields of cosmology, astronomy,
paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on. Bryson relies
on some of the best material in the history of science to have come
out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can
encounter this material in its barest essence with the bonus of
having it served up in Bryson's distinctive voice. But readers in
the field will already have studied this information more in-depth
in the originals and may find themselves questioning the point of a
breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes nothing novel.
Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted
with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things
we mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels
with the likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or
Isaac Newton is a trip worth taking for most readers.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text
refers to the Hardcover
edition.
From Booklist
Confessing to an aversion to science dating to his 1950s school
days, Bryson here writes for those of like mind, perhaps out of
guilt about his lack of literacy on the subject. Bryson reports he
has been doing penance by reading popular-science literature
published in the past decade or two, and buttonholing a few science
authors, such as Richard Fortey (Trilobite! Eyewitness to
Evolution, 2000). The authors Bryson talks to are invariably
enthusiasts who, despite their eminence, never look on his
questions as silly but, rather, view them as welcome indicators of
interest and curiosity. Making science less intimidating is
Bryson's essential selling point as he explores an atom; a cell;
light; the age and fate of the earth; the origin of human beings.
Bryson's organization is historical and his prose heavy on
humanizing anecdotes about the pioneers of physics, chemistry,
geology, biology, evolution and paleontology, or cosmology. To
those acquainted with the popular-science writing Bryson has
digested, his repackaging is a trip down memory lane, but to his
fellow science-phobes, Bryson' s tour has the same eye-opening
quality to wonder and amazement as his wildly popular travelogues.
Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights
reserved --This text refers to the Hardcover
edition.
Review
?Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the
material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest
galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange
and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of
science writing.? -- The New York Times
?Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in
many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time
Bryson hikes through the world of science.? -- People
?Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely
eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world?s
biggest story.? -- Seattle Times
?Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable.? -- Simon
Winchester, The Globe and Mail
?All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too)
can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations.? --
National Post
"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can?t help but enjoy
his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent
demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind.? -- Ottawa
Citizen
?Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned.? --
Winnipeg Free Press -- Review
Review
“Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the
material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest
galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange
and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of
science writing.”
—The New York Times
“Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in
many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time
Bryson hikes through the world of science.”
—People
“Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely
eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world’s
biggest story.”
—Seattle Times
“Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable.”
—Simon Winchester, The Globe and Mail
“All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too)
can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable
explanations.”
—National Post
"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can’t help but enjoy
his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent
demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind.”
—Ottawa Citizen
“Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned.”
—Winnipeg Free Press
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