A Short History of Nearly Everything Audio CD – Unabridged, 28 Oct. 2016

I bought this for my daughter a year or so ago, but as it's still making its way around her family, I picked up another copy in an Oxfam shop a couple of weeks ago. I'm a fan of Bryson's writing (and particularly enjoyed his "At Home", which appeared seven years after the present volume). The blurb on the back cover of this book describes it as "his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization", which looks like a tall order, particularly for a "short" history. The key, however, lies in the qualifier "nearly", which suggests Bryson's tour through science is like his travelogues: preferring to give an impression by picking up things which take his interest rather than providing a complete survey.For example, the majority of his discussion of the solar system focusses on Pluto (which unfortunately lost its designation as a planet three years after this book was published) and travels outwards from there - specifically, to the Oort cloud at the very limit of the Sun's gravitational influence. Missing out all the other planets (apart from Earth) leaves more space for discussion of geology, anthropology and biology; this is fine with me as I didn't know much about these topics.Bryson enlivens his account with characteristically eye-catching details, often involving personal details about scientists:- the mother of Dimitri Mendeleyev (who devised the periodic table) hitchiked with her son four thousand miles ("equivalent to travelling from London to Equatorial Guinea") across Russia to get him an education;- the papers of Marie Curie (winner of two Nobel Prizes) are so drenched in radioactivity - even her cookbooks - that they're still kept in lead-lined boxes;- the paleontologist Edward Drinker Cope, when trying to take bones away from Indian lands, managed to distract a party of suspicious Crow Indians by repeatedly taking out and replacing his false teeth.And if you like names like that, Bryson also mentions Annie Jump Cannon who, while working as a Harvard Computer (i.e. mapping stars according to their intensity - by hand, from photographic plates) devised a system of stellar classification which is still in use today. He also has a gift for vivid simile - e.g. "at the average ocean depth of 4 kilometres the pressure is equivalent to being squashed beneath a stack of fourteen loaded cement trucks" [p296], and quotes David Attenborough on the blue whale, whose "tongue weighs as much as an elephant", and whose "heart is the size of a car and some of its blood vessels are so wide that you could swim down them" [p343].I enjoyed reading this very much and learnt a lot, although I think that when he draws an analogy on p175 between how writers think in terms of words rather than letters and how chemists think in terms of molecules "rather than elements", he really means atoms. But that's to cavil.

The only problem I have with this book is that it's too much info to take in at once. Names and facts are thrown at you relentlessly and I'm thinking: no way am I going to remember 90 percent of these people.

I had no prior knowledge or real interest in science before starting this book. But, ‘If you only ever read one non-fiction book…’ was the passionate recommendation from a friend. So I dived in open-minded, let the current pull me through this lengthy publication, treading water occasionally when concepts impeded the flow. About 20% of the book is dedicated to notes, a bibliography and an index, so the distance isn’t quite as daunting as I first feared.The book presents an overview of the natural sciences through the history of discovery. Bryson explores not just what we know, but how we know it and, just as importantly, what we don’t know. It is hard to imagine the research and talent required to write a tome so accomplished in its scope and execution.With more than a hundred thousand five-star Goodreads ratings and thousands of reviews since publication in 2003, I was very late coming to the party. However, that didn’t prevent me from enjoying and discovering this entertaining and enthusiastic work. For the most part, the writing is accessible and breezy. For example, when discussing the elements, Bryson writes:‘What sets the carbon atom apart is that it is shamelessly promiscuous. It is the party animal of the atomic world, latching on to many other atoms (including itself) and holding tight, forming molecular conga lines of hearty robustness – the very trick of nature necessary to build proteins and DNA.’Although I wouldn’t want to sit an exam on the contents, I’m sure I’ve learned much. There were moments where I paused for reflection, appreciating just how much we owe to some truly great minds. Bryson impresses upon the reader just how miraculous it is that humankind exists today. If there is a future for the human race, I wonder what the next stage of evolution will offer. If you too are late for the party, come on in — the after-party is a blast.

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Exactly as the title says, he covers the story of how Earth so varied life forms came into being. In his own inimitable style, he writes tongue in cheek, combining factual details with wry observations. I have read and reread this book many times over the years and still find it fascinating