A Short History of Nearly Everything

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Bill Bryson

Length: 5 hrs and 47 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, traveling 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 Random House, Inc. Random House Audio, a division of Random House Inc.

Critic reviews

"Destined to become a modern classic of science writing." (The New York Times Book Review)

One of the best

In short, simply fabulous. If this book in anyway piques your interest, then you definitely should select it. Never have I enjoyed a book on such weighty matters - it is concise, informative, thought provoking, while at all times witty!

Required Listening

This book is absolutely unbelievable. It should be required for anyone outside of school as a sort of adult text book you actually want to learn from. Written (and read) in plain language, the science remains in the proper place for lay people: fascinating and awe-inspiring, not incomprehensible and tedious. If you're always interested in the world and the balance of life, get this audio-book.

Most Entertaining and Informative

This was so good, I plan on listening to it at least several more times so as to absorb all the facts.

Listen & learn

Bryson does a masterful job of weaving personal stories, and many hard to comprehend subjects, into a totally enjoyable tale. He covers a broad cut of cosmology, biology and nearly every important human discovery. You will likely find this well worth a listen, especially if you are just slightly interetsed in the sciences.

the best science read you will every happen on.

I can not believe how proficient the author is by taking such a breath of imformation and condensing it into bitesize pieces that even a doctoral can find a wonderful relevance and new context. I loved it and think every middle school and high school kid should hear this. Wonderful.

Superb Book

A well read, well written account of all those questions I always wanted to know -- from the current knowledge of the universe's beginnings to what we know about atoms. All explained in an enjoyable and easily understood way, this has become one of my all time favorite non-fiction books.

Great book!

This is a really good book. It really does touch on nearly every area of science. Great if you just want to brush up on your general science knowledge. I have to echo the earlier comments also, this guy is a great narrator. Never droning or monotonous. I highly recommend this book

A Short History of Nearly Everything

Extremely thought provoking. My only regret was that I didn't realize there was an unabridged version which I may now have to get anyways. I have recommended this to numerous people already!

The title doesn't do it justice

Where does A Short History of Nearly Everything rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

3 only because it's so long.

What did you like best about this story?

When I finally understood things around chapter 4, anything before that and I was like "woah wait, I know the name... ohhh that's what he/she/they did" the first chapter was by far the hardest to actually get through. I only listened to the 5+ hour version, the 17+hour one would probably have made me feel like a child being told all the information he'll learn from 1st grade till college. It's not something you should just have in the background and try to listen to as you'll catch yourself having to go back a few minutes/seconds. I intend to go through this once more until it all "clicks." If you have the time, try the longer version, I might try it once I have this one down.

Warning: this is the abridged version

This is my all-time favorite book, so I cannot give it less than five stars. However, you must be warned that this is an abridged version. As of the date of this review, the description does not say it’s abridged. I only realized it when I got to the abrupt end. I returned this book for another credit because I already have the full version. I hope one day Bill will narrate the whole book in all it’s glory.