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Dec 17, 2009

Sarah rated it:

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: wh More...

3 comments like (40 people liked it)

Oct 12, 2007

Foster rated it:

This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There, I said it

Bryson's book combines the best qualities of science writers like Attenborough, Diamond, Durrell, and Wilson; presenting the information with the wit he is most known for. It is an amazing achievement to condense the entire base of human scientific knowledge into 478 pages, but Bryson has done it. I completely agree with Tim Flannery, who writes on the jacket that "all schools would be better places if it More...

1 comment like (37 people liked it)

Jan 24, 2010

Paul rated it:

Okay, so here's my Bill Bryson story. I was in The Gladstone, a public house not too far from this very keyboard, with my friend Yvonne, who will remain nameless. We had been imbibing more than freely. A guy approached our table and asked me in a sly surreptitious manner if I was him. Him who? Was I Bill Bryson? Now it is true that I bear a very slight resemblance

http://www.speakingvolumes.co.uk/images/...

but you could also say that about Benny from Abba

http://www.abbaexpress.co.uk/benny/benny... More...

19 comments like (23 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2007

Martine rated it:

I know virtually nothing about science, so it was with some trepidation that I began reading this introduction to life, the universe and everything, which deals with questions such as "How did the universe originate?" and "How much does planet Earth weigh?". I ended up enjoying the hell out of it, as Bryson's writing style is so witty and accessible that it frequently made me laugh out loud. He has a knack of telling you not just about major developments in the history of the More...

0 comments like (7 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Bookshop rated it:

Bill Bryson is one of my favourite travel writers. He is immensely funny. He's an American married to a Brit and lives in the UK now. That has an influcence is his writing: he has taken up the dry, self-depreciating humour of the Brits while, at times, remained blunt and straight-forward, as Americans do.

This is his first attempt to write something other than travelling. The book is about science, general science for general public. It covers everything from astronomy to zoology, fro More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Dec 10, 2009

Sandybanks rated it:

What I learned from this book (in no particular order)

1. Phosphor was accidentally discovered when a scientist tried to turn human urine into gold. The similarity in color seemed to have been a factor in his conviction that this was possible. Like, duh. I’m no scientist, but shouldn’t it be obvious enough?

2. “In the early 1800s there arose in England a fashion for inhaling nitrous oxide, or laughing gas, after it was discovered that its use ‘ was attended by a highly ple More...

16 comments like (18 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2007

Grumpus rated it:

This is based upon the audio download from [www.audible.com].

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Don’t let the 3 star rating mislead you. This was an awesome book and I’m certain others will think more highly of it. It is a great introduction for those not into the biography of the universe and the history of science. However, if you watch the Science Channel, History Channel, PBS, etc., then you’ll already know much of what’s covered. It is the true "Once upon a time. More...

0 comments like (6 people liked it)

Aug 13, 2010

Jamie rated it:

Good grief if I had even one textbook half this enthralling in high school, who knows what kind of impassioned -ologist I would have grown up to be. I hereby petition Bryson to re-write all curriculum on behalf of the history of the world.

I would run across things half-remembered from midterms and study guides and think, "You mean this is what they were talking about? You have got to be kidding me." It's never condescending, always a joy.

In fact, what I loved More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Jul 11, 2008

John rated it:

Bill Bryson is excellent... so witty and funny. His writing makes me laugh out loud and cry with laughter - sometimes I can barely breathe.

His research is also wonderful and the facts, presented in this book, are not only interesting, but also startling, fascinating and stimulating. The whole book is wonderfully assembled and a delight to read, re-read and simply to dip into.

Indeed... I am re-reading again....

It is, however, a severe worry to me that many of t More...

5 comments like (4 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Megan rated it:

It says I finished this is March 2008 but it is important to note I started it last summer. It took a long time. Interestingly though that doesn't mean it was bad, it is just long and caters easily to frequently month long stops. It is an easy book to pick up and start anywhere. All in all I really liked it, it is mostly a nicely written history of science and some sciences have more interesting history's than others but they all have their eccentrics.
Bill Byrson is always entertaining an More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Sep 15, 2010

Dave rated it:

First off, this is a huge departure from Bryson's breezy, excellent travel logs. Secondly, this book should be read with some frequency. It is so densely packed with valuable insight, and sound bites of discovery that you could not possibly absorb it all with one pass. This is my second time reading it and I plan on doing it again next year. The organizational structure is a wonderful series of loosely connected cameos covering several essential and enlightened discoveries of man. As an added bo More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 07, 2010

Ben rated it:

Second reading review, May 7, 2010.

I cannot recommend this book enough. No word of hyperbole: this is a book that everyone should read. Bill Bryson takes the span of human existence and produced a popular history of science that's both accurate and moving. A Short History of Nearly Everything is a celebration of science, but it also evokes the sense of wonder about the universe that science makes available to us. And, almost inevitably, it underscores how much we still have yet t More...

2 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 27, 2009

Marian rated it:

You're probably looking at this book thinking it is so far off my normal path. And it is. I'm chalking it up to penance for doing so poorly in every science class I ever attended.

I truly gave this book an honest effort, but at 2/3 of the way through I cannot continue. In all honesty, the book probably deserves a 5-star rating given there is no fault to be found with either the research or the writing. The problem here is this reader has a 1-star IQ. So I split the difference with 3 More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Apr 03, 2008

David rated it:

There are, broadly speaking, two classes of interesting popular science books. The first class is written by scientists who want to reach a popular audience; the second class is written by journalists who find a particular scientific topic interesting. Good examples of the first class include the writing of Henri Poincare (The Value of Science is a recent printing of three of his books in one volume -- still relevant over a century after they appeared, and it made me wish I could read the orig More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 10, 2008

Sammy rated it:

I really love this book.
I really think you should read it.

I must admit that I'm somewhat biased; I was already a fan of Bryson's work, and I am generally interested in the sciences. Perhaps as a function of that, I believe this to be my favorite of his books (so far).

It's hard for me not to talk to people about the things I read in this book. I mean, it's all so completely interesting to me that I think it should be discussed at all times, in addition to the fac More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 07, 2007

Jason rated it:

I found the title of this work somewhat misleading. Perhaps it should have been called A History of the Natural Sciences or maybe even A Short History of Natural History. Nevertheless, science books often do not sell well so I am sure the idea in titling the book A Short History of Nearly Everything was to attract more of a broad readership. The book itself isn't awful but certainly reads like a survey work. In other words, you won't learn complicated how-tos of scientific methodology but you wi More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Dan rated it:

This book is amazing tto me. As a social studies teacher it may seem as a strange choise but I bought this book after a recomendation (yes, Magnus, it was Robert).

He hadn't finished it but said that it was funny to digest in small packages. He was wrong. I'm trying to find time to read this one as much as I can. The book is truly in the genre of sience, but the good thing about it is that it does not only speak strange sience terms (to me) but it gives me the stories about the scien More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jul 15, 2009

Punk rated it:

Non-Fiction. Bryson's travelogue of scientific discovery is heavy on trivia and light on science. This is a history more than a science book, which is right in the title, I know, but in the introduction, he says he set out to discover what scientists know, like how much the Earth weighs, and how they figured that out, but mostly what we get is who figured it out and when.

The science is watered down, but the stories of scientific achievement (backstabbing and all) make up for it, and More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jun 08, 2007

Sarah rated it:

I have to say this is by far one of the best books I've ever read. Although I haven't finished I'm in love with this book.
My chemistry teacher gave me it to read a while back and it took me a while to get started on it, but after I did I couldn't put it down. You don't have to have a real passion for physics or biology or chemistry to appreciate the book as a whole. Although I find some chapters more intresting than others, the footnotes that Bryson includes definetly make the book as lig More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 17, 2007

Abe rated it:

This book is what its title claims: a comprehensive—and often hilarious—look at the big moments in natural history, chemistry, biology, astronomy, etc. Bryson's breezy narrative style suits the project well, and his initial professed ignorance helps get the reader on board from the outset (no didacticism here—he’s a dummy like the rest of us (well, me, at any rate)). He may be prone to overdo the humor (or perhaps go too far in the cheese department), but the fact that he adopts a rather irrev More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Sep 04, 2007

Ms Sarah rated it:

Not everyone is a science geek. Bill knows that.

I am a science geek. Not that I took a lot of science courses, but it's a source of fascination for me. There was a lot of stuff I already knew -- if you've read A Brief History of Time the first two chapters are a wash -- but there was also a lot of stuff I didn't. It is miraculously accessible and funny, like all of Bryson's work.

This is a textbook on its face, but at its heart is the diary of a grown man coming home e More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Nov 19, 2008

Tamra rated it:

I wanted to share a story about the Introduction. I was reading on the page that tells about him seeing the cut-out of the earth when he was a boy and just being fascinated by it: how did they know what was down there in the center of the earth, etc. I have the hefty illustrated edition, so it showed the cut out. My 7-year-old daughter walks in, looks at the picture and says, "Can they really take out part of the earth like that?" I told her no. "Can they dig down that far?" More...

6 comments like (1 person liked it)

Apr 16, 2009

Jen rated it:

i feel like i've conquered something, finally finishing this book. it's like a tome of superlatives. it's like the title should be IN CAPS WITH EXCLAMATION POINTS !!! it's like if i'd had this book (and bill nye) in high school and college, i would have cared more (however, i still don't care about chemistry). if this book and my favorite book had a baby, my brain would spooge. bless you, bill bryson, for bringing it. More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Oct 21, 2010

Kirk rated it:

Bryson certainly succeeds in producing a layman's version of a wealth of scientific knowledge, often bringing a dark humor remniscient of Catch 22 to the fold. The book drags a bit during the chapters on the micro scale of life and science: atoms, cells, particles, etc., but overall I found myself anticipating each coming chapter. Throughout the book I was waiting for Bryson to acknowledge what role human beings have in the intricate, universal system he lays out, and, in the last chapter, he More...

1 comment like (1 person liked it)

Nov 04, 2007

Elizabeth rated it:

I got into a conversation with someone at a conference about this book. It made me remember how much I enjoy his writing. As my fellow lunch conversationalist said, "Bill Bryson has a talent for finding the absurd about any situation and relating it in a way that is eminently funny and engaging." (And yes, the lunch conversationalist was a bit pompous.)

However, pomposity does not negate the fact that this is a great book. As the title suggests, it really is about almost More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Mar 30, 2008

Tony rated it:

There is just far too much in here to review in any sort of rational way. The book matches the title well: it is a short history of nearly anything, and as such, sinks its teeth truly into nothing. The best parts were all the random funny asides about the peculiar personality types of strange scientists, which is very amusing and reminiscent of his other works (the travel genre) from which he is more famous. In general, it is an enjoyable fluffy read, but sadly, not informative enough for those More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 17, 2007

Meghan rated it:

Everyone should read this book. There is so much information in this book and I believe everyone will get something different out of it. You will learn a lot about human beings need for knowledge while at the same time our some what automatic reaction to reject ideas that contradict our old way of thinking. It reminds us of how far we have come and how far we have yet to go,how little we really know about the universe and how we got here. That there is still so much mystery to it all. My fa More...

1 comment like (2 people liked it)

Oct 01, 2008

Alison rated it:

Thought this book was amazing. What an undertaking: to encompass the history of the universe in one single book. Yet he does it with incredible grace and credibility. His capacity for research, for organized thought, and for presenting complex information in an entertaining while still informative way is pretty incredible. The book became the basis for countless conversations while I was reading it -- it's full of information/facts/data that are great fodder for thought and chatter. This would b More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 06, 2011

Marc added it

What a subject to attempt! I'm not quite sure what I expected when I started reading this, given the breadth of the title, but I was hoping for something witty and well-written, as I have come to expect from the pen of Mr. Bryson. I was not disappointed.

Such a broad subject, ranging in time and space from the very beginning (something almost impossible to imagine) with absolute nothingness (equally impossible to imagine), Mr. Bryson attempts to chart the course of our very beginnings right up More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Aug 01, 2011

Anthony added it

Not a bad book. Acceptably anthropocentric (acceptably in that it's anthropocentric to a normal level, but adds in reminders that, guess what, we're just another species).

Not boring, but, well ... I don't really know how to describe what I'm getting at. It felt like a book I should have just read occasionally instead of a book I just wanted to sit down to read straight through. Some people might call that a bathroom reader. I don't know. Since it was a library book, though, I didn't have the lux More...

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