Name: A Short History of Nearly Everything
Rating: 4.284375 (320 reviews)
ISBN: 9780767908184

Bill Bryson

The author of A Walk in the Woods traces the Big Bang through the rise of civilization, documenting his work with a host of the world's most advanced scientists and mathematicians to explain why things are the way they are. Reprint. 125,000 first printing.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Greg Talbot

Giving a linear story to the birth of science from the Enlightenment until just a decade ago, Bryson manages to make a big story personal, warm, interesting, insightful, and wondrous. It's a big book, but Bryson handles the material thoughtfully, addressing key events taking place in the fields of biology, chemistry, physics. Mixed in is wry humor, thoughtful antedotes, occasional stepping back and assessing the material (he does so with grace and gusto when talking about the conditions that make life as we know it). Let's see: The advent of chemistry, the publishing of Newton's Principlia that denied the laws of motion, Einstein's 5 revolutionary papers (one that defined the atom, one won him the Nobel Prize, one changed the world), Bork's experiments of quantum mechanics that showed the molecular world does not follow the traditional physics, the design of DNA by Hantaro Nagaoka, the discovery of replication of DNA (Waston, Cricket, Franklin), and Darwin's illumination of evolution. Yeah, that's like 10% of the book This book will get you into science in a big way. Just consider the Mansom impact crater in Iowa, or the taxonomists who dedicate their lives assembling the classification of a plant or animal. Even though there are so many doubters whether it be Darwin and the full implications of evolution, or plate tectonics and general shifting of land masses around the world, science moves slowly and often with halting cynicism. Prepare to be shaken up too. When talking of the ice ages (that we still fail to predict/understand), Bryson says "extraordinary fact is that we don't know which is more likely a future offering us eons of perishing frigidity or one giving us equal expanses of steamy heat. Only one thing is certain: we live on a knife edge". Even with all our awareness, and ability to survive all over the world, our species has just been a speck on the map. The mysteries outweight the understanding, and we continue to douse our environment and future with the ills of climate change, deforestation, extinction and famine. This may be why, in so many ways, Bryson has written a book in celebration of Earth and maybe even Providence. Truly a wonderful read. It's hard for me to imagine it not impacting someone. I know it has for me, and may ultimately be one of those paradigm shifting books, one you look back at with pleasure and awe.

heightened appreciation for the scientific process and discovery

Xin Ma

A short history of nearly everything

Michael Springer

So, I read the children's version of this called "A REALLY Short History of Nearly Everything." At around 170 pages with big, cool illustrations, it was a very fun read. Some subjects were begging for more than a four-sentence paragraph's-worth of explanation (for instance, Einstein's theory of relativity), and I'm looking forward to reading the original version of the book to get a bit more extrapolation. 

Bill Bryson maintains a fun and fascinated tone throughout the book that makes it very easy to remember my initial fascination with science, back before chemistry confused me enough to scare me away. And he really does cover just about everything, from the weight of the planet, to the extent of the universe, to how we discovered the answers to both these questions; the development of life on earth from the very beginnings up until us; a brief history of chemistry, biology, geology, astrology...yeah, pretty much everything but quantum theory. And, while covering all of this stuff, he also tells us hilarious anecdotes about the scientists who discovered these things, which adds another fascinating layer to the history of science.

All of this, and the book is filled with charming illustrations. Some of them are hilarious: during his discussion of life first making its way out of the ocean onto land, there's a small illustration of tiny little plants walking from the water onto the beach, each carrying two little suitcases. Haha!

And, this book is a perfect crapper read. You can easily read two pages while on the can, and learn something super-cool (or at least be reminded of something fun you'd forgotten). For all of these reasons, it's worth reading. And other than Dave Barry, I can't think of anyone I'd rather learn science from than Bill Bryson.

Lord Aragorn

An excellent book even though some parts are a bit outdated since the book was published in 2003. Still an exciting telling of the story of the universe, physics, chemistry, and the history of life in different forms. A must-read for any science geek. I wish there was an addendum to bring it up to date with the learnings from the past two decades.

"This book is Bill Bryson's quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. It's not so much about what we know, as how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out?" - book jacket.

Jiahao Chen

Very absorbing reading about the little things that make up the fabric of our world.

Simao Freitas

An incredible overview of where we come from and how it happened. Very interesting and engaging.

Becky A

Read years ago and realized I had never added to Goodreads, despite it being one of my all time faves (hence no date). 

This is the book that made me remember that I love science.

Breve História de Quase Tudo

Nelson Zagalo

Comprei este livro há alguns anos, talvez 2005/2006, imbuído da ideia de que seria o novo “Cosmos”, pelo menos assim era vendido na altura. O livro tinha sido não apenas muito premiado, como tinha muitos elogios na imprensa. Confesso que não passei das 50 páginas, encostei-o. Passados 10 anos resolvi dar-lhe nova hipótese, agora na versão original em audiobook. Mais uma vez, não consegui passar de 1/3, ainda saltei alguns capítulos, li mais meia-dúzia saltando, mas nada, o registo simplesmente nada me diz. Resolvi encostá-lo de vez.

Como o próprio título indica este livro tenta falar sobre quase tudo, mas acaba a falar de quase nada, pelo menos foi assim que o senti. Nada se aprofunda, não há enfoque, nada é verdadeiramente dissecado. Tudo tem direito a uma história, a um cientista qualquer que fez qualquer coisa, que inventou qualquer coisa, que por acaso encontrou qualquer coisa, e é apenas disso que se trata. Ou seja, muitos tópicos, muitas histórias, e pouca realidade. Comparar este livro a “Cosmos” é demonstrar nunca se ter lido realmente “Cosmos”.

Percebi depois porque não gostei, e porque me surpreendeu a abordagem tão oca. Ao contrário de Sagan, Bryson não é um cientista, é jornalista, escritor de livros de viagens! E assim se explica muito do que está errado neste livro, a tentativa de dar conta da ciência, como se de um aglomerado de histórias que conferem autenticidade a espaços e eventos se tratasse. Alguma pessoas reais, algumas piadas, e assim se vai falando sobre tudo e mais alguma coisa.

Não tenho nada contra as histórias sobre os cientistas, podem até ser interessantes, mas contar a história de quase tudo, através das histórias de cientistas tão diversos e sem relação, parece-me resultar apenas num amontoado de factos sem grande relevância para esse “quase tudo”.

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century, and reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Kuba Milcarz

2 months. It was such a slog. But definitely worth reading at least once. This book is packed with knowledge. It’s an extensive guide to: the universe, Earth, nature, and humans. This is how they should teach science in schools!

Sreyas Mahadevan

Fantastic survey of the progression of scientific thought, made particularly accessible and riveting through Bryson's pithy yet amusingly witty writing style.

Michael Friess

A witty and delightful hommage to the universe, nature and life and those who discovered its manifold wonders and built our current body of knowledge about it - as little as it is.

The author takes you on a tour de force through science but does it with ease and humour. When you skim the 80 pages of notes and bibliography, you get a glimpse of how vast distance you travelled. The book is divided into six chapters: cosmos, planet earth, new 20th century discoveries (relativity theory, quantum physics, tectonics), development of planet earth's development, development of life, and of human beings.

It is a great travel guide through modern science.

Bill Mazza

Absolutely loved this. Had a handful of chapters that moved a little slow, but overall this is a wonderful book that pretty much everybody should give a read. Bonus - the audiobook is excellent

Diana Platgalve

Written in a reductionist style, the book is aiming to combine answers to the biggest scientific questions. The book is easy to read, covering topics from material content of the universe, properties of particles, the origins of human being and nature of the reality. While reading, you can feel fascination the author has about everything around us and how it has evolved, as well, at the same time reminding that answers we currently hold might not be the final answers. 

The book is covering not only scientific achievements, but as well some of the biggest failures, paradoxes and questions (sciences like physics) try to ignore (for now).


After reading this book you will still question everything around you, possibly even more than before. We still have no clue how reality or universe is structured and there is place for your answers...

Tenisha Scott

For a History buff, this brief account of our past was a great way to spark interest in continuous, life-long learning about our history as human beings and planet earth. However, it did take me a while to finish it. I listened on audible and it was a great road-trip 'read'.

Tomasz

Dobra książka na prezent - dla osób niekoniecznie już wiedzących co nieco więcej o nauce.
Autor ma bardzo lekkie pióro - pisze świetnie i z humorem. 
Książka zaczyna się od fizyki, potem przez geologię trafiamy do biologii, antropologii. Naukę poznajemy nie poprzez czyste zjawiska, ale raczej poprzez naukowców, którzy je odkryli. W książce opisane są również spotkania autora z obecnie żyjącymi naukowcami.
Także i ja, osoba dość zapoznana z popularnonaukowymi recenzjami, dowiedziałem się paru ciekawostek.

Kerri McDonald

I love Bill Bryson, but this book was just dull, dull, dull...

A Short History of Nearly Everything

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