Synopses & Reviews
One of the world's most beloved and bestselling 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.
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"[T]o read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace....[A] trip worth taking..." Publishers Weekly
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"I can't vouch for the accuracy of the content, but written the way it is, it undeniably makes learning fun....I can't imagine what Mr. Bryson will tackle next....But I look forward to his future undertaking with unabashed eagerness." BookReporter
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"Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent...a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world's biggest story." Seattle Times
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"A 545-page doorstop that is neither a hilarious travelogue or a witty book about language, both trademarks of the author. Rather, it's a swift tour of the sciences and an ambitious one at that....Bryson is a master of his craft." Chicago Sun-Times
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"Bill Bryson's latest tome...delivers exactly what the title suggests....Readers familiar with Bryson's wry sense of humor and casual writing style will find plenty here; he makes science interesting and funny." Boston Globe
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"A Short History of Nearly Everything is everything a book should be informative, engaging, well styled, rewarding both for the information it provides and the art that shapes it." Minneapolis Star Tribune
About the Author
Bill Bryson's bestselling books include A Walk in the Woods, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, In A Sunburned Country, Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Bill Bryson's African Diary, and A Short History of Nearly Everything. He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and children.
Table of Contents
Acknowledgments
Introduction 1
Pt. I Lost in the Cosmos 7
1 How to Build a Universe 9
2 Welcome to the Solar System 19
3 The Reverend Evans's Universe 29
Pt. II The Size of the Earth 41
4 The Measure of Things 43
5 The Stone-Breakers 63
6 Science Red in Tooth and Claw 79
7 Elemental Matters 97
Pt. III A New Age Dawns 113
8 Einstein's Universe 115
9 The Mighty Atom 133
10 Getting the Lead Out 149
11 Muster Mark's Quarks 161
12 The Earth Moves 173
Pt. IV Dangerous Planet 187
13 Bang! 189
14 The Fire Below 207
15 Dangerous Beauty 224
Pt. V Life Itself 237
16 Lonely Planet 239
17 Into the Troposphere 255
18 The Bounding Main 270
19 The Rise of Life 287
20 Small World 302
21 Life Goes On 321
22 Good-bye to All That 335
23 The Richness of Being 350
24 Cells 371
25 Darwin's Singular Notion 381
26 The Stuff of Life 397
Pt. VI The Road to Us 417
27 Ice Time 419
28 The Mysterious Biped 434
29 The Restless Ape 453
30 Good-bye 469
Notes 479
Bibliography 517
Index 529