A Short History of Nearly Everything

2.0

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER, UPDATED FOR 2025 • A wonder-filled quest to understand everything that has happened in the history of the Earth, from the Big Bang theory to the rise of civilization and beyond—revised to reflect the last two decades of scientific advancement

“Brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing.”—The New York Times

How did we get from being nothing at all to where we are today? How did the age of the dinosaurs eventually give way to the age of the iPhone? In this completely revised update to the international phenomenon A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson returns to answer these questions and many more.

Bryson brings a groundbreaking account of life itself to a new generation of readers, as he takes subjects often passed off as boring and incomprehensible and renders them accessible, fascinating, and outright amusing to anyone who’s ever wondered about the world around them. Introducing readers to a diverse cast of the world’s most impressive archaeologists, paleontologists, physicists, astronomers, anthropologists, and mathematicians—from their offices and laboratories to dig sites and field camps—Bryson embarks on a journey to discover answers to the biggest questions about the universe and ourselves.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is a profoundly enlightening, surprisingly humorous, and charmingly clever adventure into the realm of human knowledge, as only Bryson can render it. His revamped Short History is a thrilling journey through time and space, and his writing will make readers both new and old see the world in a whole new way.

Critic reviews

“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

“[A Short History of Nearly Everything] is a crash course in the basics of climatology, chemistry, biology, botany, geology and physics. Bryson’s enthusiasm is infectious, his explanations simple. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get them.”
—The Citizen’s Weekly

A Classic

History of Science, sure, but that certainly is not all by any means. It is the history of the remarkable men and women who contributed to a knowledge about ourselves, our planet and our place in time and space. It is a story about some of the greatest minds, their thinking, treachery, genius and stupidity. Never does the book seem like a lecture though at nearly every turn there is something to learn and fairly easily understand. The subjects are serious though Bryson's wit and humor should keep everyone smiling and chuckling all the way through. The content is great; the narration superb.

Very Good Book!!!

I've subscribed to audible for more than a year and this is my favorite book by far. I've listened to it about a dozen times. I'll continue to listen to it in the future. The narration is well done and pleasant. The research is honest and searching for what we know (and why) about us and our environment. It mentions a lot about what we don't know. --And it has humor! And it brings to light the weaknesses and strengths of humans who contributed to our cumulative knowledge of ourselves. I'm a layperson, but this book is a kind of Bible of our species. In the first chapter, Bill Bryson tells exactly what he sets out to do: As a child he wanted to understand what we think we know about ourselves and why. And he did it!! I like this book because it's about truth. Well done Bill.

Outstanding!

The unabridged version of Bryson's book is incredibly entertaining and informative. Best of all, you can listen to it in chunks, put it away for a few days, then continue without having to remember characters' names and such. VERY worthwhile.

The one drawback with audio

Bill Bryson is a personal favorite of mine-- I find I always laugh as much as I learn with him, often on topics that I previously had no interest. This book is no different, filled with amazing scientific truths and celebrity gossip. To bring it down to reality (after all, can anyone really grasp how large a billion of anything is?) he loads the book with metaphors which helps 'C' students in science keep up. In fact, Bryson comes across as that one college professor on campus that everyone clamours to take no matter how dry his subject seems to be.

So why four stars and not five? It is more a problem with the audio format than the book. There are so many numbers and so many facts that I found myself wanting to refer back to certain sections, a task not easy in MP3. The joy of a book is the not just the tactility and smell, but also the ability to hop about, re-experiencing parts of the book that you found fascinating but had trouble relating it to a friend. I love audio books, but this one is no perfectly suited for this medium.

Enjoyanly, educational

Witty, funny, at times profound and thought-provoking. Covers a wide range of topics from scientific and historic.

Deeply enjoyable with a wonderful narrator.