a short history of nearly everything pages

Or wanted to reach the edge of the universe? Or thought about how we can weigh the earth? The only downside to the audiobook comes when discussing some numbers where the sheer immensity gets lost a bit without seeing it written down but it's the most minor of quibbles for a truly special text introducing reasonable intelligent science to the reasonably intelligent person.Adapted from A Short History of Nearly Everything, this stunningly illustrated book from Bill Bryson takes us from the Big Bang to the dawn of science, and everything in between!Įver wondered how we got from nothing to something? This is by no means complete, but there is a surprisingly large amount covered including cosmology, geology, biology and lots of other things you hated at school because they weren't presented this clearly or interestingly. This is interspaced with tales of the people behind the discoveries (many oddballs and eccentrics). Split in fairly broad swathes by subject, he addresses what we know, what we suspect and what we thought we knew but now figure we got wrong. I highly rate this book, the writing is good, and there were times I laughed out loud, at the authors humour which kind of sneaks up on you.īill Bryson is best known for writing fun travelogues of his journeys around the world and, here, he turns the same sense of humour and writing style to this brief walk through the history of science. It rarely strays into the extremely technical or detailed, but still conveys the main thrust of the ideas.

If you're interested in the general topics I mentioned, and just want a nice, 'for the average person with an interest in science' presentation of this material, you'll thoroughly enjoy this audio book. Even though this is probably one of the longest audio books on this site, you'll still be wanting more when it's over. But it follows a coherent path about all those little tidbits of the history of our planet, our species and our universe, that everyone should know, but most of us never bothered to investigate. The actual content is far too wide ranging to cover specifically in a short review.

At first the narrator was slightly irritating, he sounds like the kind of 'crazy professor' types they get to host pop science shows for kids, but after a while he grew on me, and in the end I think it was very well narrated.

This is my favourite audio book from audible so far.

A short history of nearly everything pages