When I read this book it changed my life. Then again, reading this book and my life changing may have been co-incidental but when I had finished “A Short History…” I knew that I was
a) completely in awe of science, nature (not the journals) and chance and
b) a full-blown atheist.
Bryson considers each major area of science at a time and walks the reader through all its major achievements and discoveries. It takes a lovely personal spin on things as he gives the big names personalities and stories, and reminds us how the real thinker behind an idea is often not credited.
Being a non-scientist, Bryson manages to take us to great scientific depths without ever becoming too technical, so this book is ideal for anyone with a respect or a curiosity for science or anyone who just needs a little perspective on human life.
The cover promises a story full of “wonder and delight” – true, but given the frequent reminders of various disasters that, statistically, should soon befall the Earth, one might add “panic” to the feelings this book inspires.
But given the amazing string of coincidences that lead to life being here in the first place, we shouldn’t really complain if this lucky streak were to end.
This book has some brilliant quotes, like calling humans “the living universe’s supreme achievement and its worst nightmare simultaneously”.
Bryson is obviously a very good travel writer, but taking a stroll through the universe with him is undoubtedly my best Bryson-reading experience.
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I have this book in hand right now and I’m enjoying it immensely. This is a terrific review. I agree wholeheartedly.
Comment by globetrotteri — Monday, 20 August 2007 @ 4:31 am |
i don’t know if i want to read this – i read a couple of his books prior and for some strange reason, he irked me to no end…
Comment by Lil — Monday, 19 November 2007 @ 12:26 pm |
I know what you mean… in some of his travel books he comes across a bit prejudiced, despite all the travelling. Still, this one is brilliant!
Comment by popscience — Monday, 19 November 2007 @ 1:28 pm |
Nice blog
I remember you reading this book back in 2004 and being fascinated by it. It’s high time I pick it up too…
Comment by Elena — Wednesday, 22 October 2008 @ 6:11 pm |
I’m totally amazed that there are so few comments on this posting. Anything, anything that Bill Bryson writes is spectacular, witty and not without charm. He has a genius for the utilization of scores of rhetorical devices…one only need be cognizent of them.
His “Lost Continent” is a gem that bears a re-reading every few years. His description of the philosophies and attitudes denizens of the “South” are so true-to-life that it is truly astonishing.
Bryson is also a master of descriptive nostalgia. I have, and will contiune to devour, anything literary he attempts to embark upon. He is not just “rara avis”, he is “sui generis”.
Comment by Ken Tibbetts — Friday, 11 September 2009 @ 9:31 pm |
I’m 55, English and I live in the USA. Everything WB writes strikes a chord with me, we travel through life with the same balance of objectivity and subjectivity, often through the same countrysides.
I don’t like him being described as an atheist; like me, he never denies the possibility that there may be a god, we have just given up wasting effort on trying to find any proof.
Anyhow, I’m writing to encourage WB to contact John Moe, the NPR broadcaster. John is looking for a new worthwhile program format. WB has experienced the joys of ethics debated on BBC radio, Radio 4’s The Moral Maze and Any Questions for example.
It would do America good to have available a forum for discussing Right v. Wrong that didn’t rely on some irrational book or other. WB is just the man to help guide John to reclaim some of the moral high ground for the secularists.
If I won the lottery I’d make sure all US high schools had as many A Short Histories… as they have Korans, Bibles and Books of Mormon.
Live long and prosper, JFY
Comment by james from yesteryear — Saturday, 17 October 2009 @ 12:10 am |