A Short History of Nearly Everything

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the world’s most beloved and best-selling writers 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 Trail - well, most of it. In 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 understand - and, if possible, answer - the 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.

©2003 Bill Bryson (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc. Published by Arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Not to be missed." (AudioFile)
"Destined to become a modern classic of science writing." (The New York Times Book Review)

Incredibly Interesting Book

This book contains a lot of science, which can tend to be boring. With Bill Bryson, however, science is incredibly witty, entertaining, and fun. It puts everything you have ever thought of into perspective. You could not possibly regret having read this book.

Amazing!!

Such a great book! It was read brilliantly and I found myself excited to hear more every time I stopped. Also incredibly important reading for understanding the universe we live in.

very educational

this book hits on a lot of subjects that interest most everyone who would even entertain reading this book. I very much like the fact that it discusses how many of the theories in the scientific world are uncertain and that there are debates raging between scientist almost every Theory. even some of our most common held theories have very large points of contention or flat-out don't have answers to things. This book approaches theories from the standpoint of, " this theory proposes X but cannot explain Y". everything in science is in flux. theories are always changing or being replaced by new ones. This talks a lot about the progression. it's very quick to discuss what is known and point out very clearly what is not known. it also casts a spotlight on how much personalities of scientist actually color the theories.

Science for the lay person

Does he truly terrific job the putting so money significant scientific events into terms we can all understand

Engaging scientific history

Started this a couple of times but never finished. Finally got through it and now I wish I had done so earlier. Really good overview of the history of science.

Recommend

A wealth of information throughout.

Very interesting from the beginning through to the end. I enjoyed the narrator also. Highly recommended.

Loved it

I thought this might be a stretch for me because I don’t have any scientific background and honestly it wasn’t even a “hobby” interest to me. I am much more a history and military history guy. However I loved it and while some went flying over my head, even then I understood enough to get the general idea. I read a lot and this is a Top 10 book for me.

Excellent “101 course” on the history of science

I am generally a fan of non-fiction, but sometimes find it difficult to follow in audiobook format. Bryson does an excellent job in weaving a narrative between scientific discoveries and the advancement of the scientific method. It was very engrossing and highly detailed, I found myself backing up the recording to catch key points. The narration was also excellent.

Love it!

I always love this book. I read it in high school for a chemistry class and listening to it may have even been better.

Dense, getting dated, but good

Bill Bryson must be one heckuva smart guy to have researched all he did, gain a firm understanding of the material ranging from physics, chemistry, biology, geology, archaeology, anthropology, etc. and explain all this science to lay people like us. I wish I could remember what he taught us in this book, but in truth, I would have to read the book several times more to grasp adequately its multitude of scientific explanations. The book was dense, and it took me time to get through it, but I am glad I did it, and I may go back to it selectively if I want to understand a piece of science better, or explain it proficiently to someone else. It's worth an attempt to read it, but bear in mind it was published 15 years ago, and scientific knowledge has accelerated since then. For example, climate change is not a major topic in this book, and it probably would be in an updated version. In any event, Bryson does describe any number of ways human civilization and much of life on this earth could perish through forces beyond our control - asteroids, massive volcanic eruption, say in Yellowstone, or geologic seismic activity - so we might consider taking steps to mitigate the catastrophes like climate change that we can influence through changes in human behavior.