A Short History of Nearly Everything

By: Bill Bryson

Narrated by: Richard Matthews

Length: 18 hrs and 13 mins

Publisher's summary

One of the world’s most beloved and best-selling 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.

©2003 Bill Bryson (P)2003 Books on Tape, Inc. Published by Arrangement with Random House Audio Publishing Group, A Division of Random House, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Not to be missed." (AudioFile)
"Destined to become a modern classic of science writing." (The New York Times Book Review)

Very fun yet educational

I have always enjoyed Bill Bryson. This book was very interesting and informative! It had humor as well as seriousness. Great read.

A wonderful listening and learning experience

Quite frankly, this was like listening to a long series of "Nature" programmes on the radio, except - amazingly enough - extremely entertaining. It ranged from completely disparate topics such as vulcanology (did you know that Yellowstone Park, all of it, is a huge volcano overdue for a massive blowout?), atoms and molecules (did you know we know there is mass, but not how?), viruses and bacteria (there was once a plague that gave everyone a kind of terminal apathy), and all the way to evolution and back with every sort of stop between.

If you at all enjoy science and nature shows, then this is a book for you. If you find them remotely boring, or flat, then maybe not. This was certainly some of the most fun I've had with science, but in such a scattershot way as to appeal to my "trivia" nature. If the section on cells had gone on much longer, for example, my iPod would have had a bit of a hard time skipping fast enough for my thumb-pressing.

It was fascinating (the places life manages to form and prosper), terrifying (we'd really not notice an extinction level impact heading our way until it was pretty much here), horrifying (upon being asked what he felt now that he'd just shot the last bird in an entire species, one fellow said, "joy"), and a little bit overwhelming (the names, dates, titles, and repetitious use of "we don't know"). At times, the various intrigues of the science community were by far more fascinating than what the scientists were studying themselves (who knew that Darwin liked to electrocute himself? Or that a 300 pound man who stayed in the same nursery wing of his estate and the same nursery bed his entire life - and never left home - wiped out species all over Hawaii - a place he never went?)

Is it "everything"? Well, of course not. But I daresay that my absolute amateur level of most scientific knowledge bases have improved a smidgeon. And really, how can it not be fun to tell children browsing in my store that the old-style diving suit on the cover of the Lemony Snicket book was originally intended to be used fighting fire? If nothing else, you'll get a real sense of just how much life (and I'm using the big-L life here, not just we homo sapiens) is sort of a grand series of really lucky coincidences. And how much we're mucking it up.

science lovers book

everyone who enjoys some aspect of science must listen to this. From physics, chemistry and biology this book attempts to chronicle the biggest breakthroughs of the human race.

one of the best books I have ever come across

Magnificent story, great detail an uncanny way of explaining the most complex scientific concepts in the easiest to understand mannerpossible

Thoroughly enjoyable!

I really enjoyed this book. The story was captivating and supported by an excellent reading performance.

Bryson makes science fun!

I love the way Bill Bryson makes the science we learned in high school accessible and interesting. His humor is refreshing.

I don't like the choice of readers for this book. Richard Matthews had a somewhat stuffy air when reading the book, and some of the humor seemed to slip right past him.

Short, but my ADHD would prefer shorter

Really good stuff, clever writing... yet there were a few really slow parts for me. Abridged maybe better? Depends on what gets cut?

Phenomenal, but needs an update badly!

A spectacular, witty, and often quite humorous recounting of the most important points in scientific advancement.

HOWEVER! It desperately needs to be updated. After all, science and scientific discovery has not just sat still since this books release over ten years ago! Major developments in our understanding of life and the universe have been accomplished. For that, the book, as it now stands, is vastly incomplete, though still quite remarkable.

Exactly what a Lay-person like me needed!

Where does A Short History of Nearly Everything rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?

This book has got to be one of my favorite books ever! The only thing I didn't like about the unabridged version was that I prefer hearing Bill Bryson read his own books. It just seems funnier to me. However, that was the only real complaint I had.

What did you like best about this story?

The best thing about this book is that it attempts (and succeeds in my opinion) to give the average non-scientist, everyday, regular person a brief explanation about basically everything that makes up the world around us.

I have always been a curious person but whenever I sat down to read about any of the sciences I could barely get past the first few chapters due to the book being way to dry or the fact that I couldn't understand most of the technical jargon. A friend of mine recommended this after I was ranting to her one day about the difficulties I was having. She told me that it would be perfect for me. A book about the sciences told from someone who had no experience in those fields. "He's normally a travel writer." she said. I told her that I would give it a try.

After a few more books that I attempted but couldn't finish, I picked this one up. Boy was I surprised! It was excellent! It's told by an author who has absolutely no background in sciences and so spent three years attempting to write a book for people like himself who had no real understanding of the world around them. Bryson talks about the history of science and the people who made the discoveries including some interesting quirks. There's nothing like receiving a Nobel prize for accidentally discovering cosmic radiation after you spent months trying to get rid of it so you could conduct your own experiments like Penzias and Wilson in 1964. Or discovering the first dinosaur bone, not recognizing that it was special and then losing it 100 years before the next one came around like the Reverend Plott.

Bryson succeeds in simplifying complex explanations down to something easily understood by the average person. If you have ever been interested in any of the sciences but can't bring yourself to read any of those mini-textbooks don't hesitate to pick up Bryson's Short History of Nearly Everything. I doubt you will be disappointed and you may even want to continue on to other books to find out more information.

Good Luck and Happy Reading!

Truly great

Bryson has a knack for making complex ideas accessible to interested non-scientists. I tend to struggle with reading non-fiction (endless dates and names always take me back to high school history and I nod off) so for me the audio format is a dream come true.
The essence of the book may be a survey of what we know but the truly wonderful thing about it is the emphasis on exactly how much we don't know. I'm left feeling that this world is a much grander and more mysterious place than I gave it credit for. I'll certainly listen to this again.