Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

Bill Bryon had cut his teeth on travelogues of various kinds. His best being his insider's view of both the UK and the US.

A Short History of Everything is a departure into the unknown for him, though it's clearly Bryson from the way he approaches the task. Wry, sharp, and in places very funny, he takes an insurmountable subject and scales it, eventually, with some aplomb.

Enjoyable, perhaps more so than the subject matter should have allowed. That's Bryson's skill!

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything - This book contains a lot of information for the general reader. I found the book very interesting, and I am looking forward to reading more books by Bill Bryson. Although there are some factual errors in it if anyone wants to go into such detail they can always read further into any particular subject, once the book has aroused their interest. I think it is a great eye-opener to the Universe.

I learnt something new every time I picked up Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything. I now know a lot of amazing history and facts about our world. Reading this book was the first time that science was interesting to me. While this book might not sound very interesting at first, it really is very fascinating. With his typical humour and wit, Bill Bryson has written the history of why we are here and how it all came to be in brief.

This book covers all of the bases. Space, stars and planets, geology, earthquakes, volcanoes, dinosaurs, the development of chemistry and physics, climate, weather, our atmosphere, the oceans, evolution, and how humans came to be micro organisms and bacteria. He putts it all together into a fascinating history with a wide range of weird characters and events, amazing coincidences, and some missed opportunities. Whilst at the same time introducing all sorts of interesting facts that I've never heard of before. I learned a lot from this book and I enjoyed reading it.

I can only imagine how much time and research went into writing it.

Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything is simply the best history of science book I have ever read. Didn't learn much about science itself, but learned a lot about the people who made the discoveries.

I am a trivia freak, so Bill Bryson's, A Short History of Nearly Everything really appealed to me. It puts ourselves and the Earth into context and makes us realise how complex and yet insignificant we are. I read most of the book on a long intercontinental flight and finished it a few weeks later. You can easily pick up the book at any section or stage. I was sorry when I finished it. I wanted it to go on....