A Short History of Nearly Everything
Bill Bryson
This book certainly aspires to a lot, attempting to answer all of life's biggest questions in readable prose and with simple explanations. I feel like I am a bit jaded in trying to review this book because so much of this book was, well, review for me. The target audience is definitely adults who have been out of high school and even college for a long time; I can still tell you who Mendeleev is and I'm actually familiar with Schrodinger's cat and what it stands for. Having taken college-level astronomy courses, I already knew most of the information presented in the section about the beginning of the universe and about how we know what we think we know. Bryson's book was entirely readable and enjoyable, but much of it was boring in light of my recent education. Ask me twenty years from now and I may have a different response.
That said, however, there are a few notable features of the book that make it worth reading if you're interested in learning about the puzzles of our planet. The book drops a lot of names accompanied by interesting characterizations which, though usually irrelevant to the actual science at hand, keep the text lively and fun. Bryson allows his dry wit to show through even when unraveling the secrets of life, and I never dreaded picking up the book. The explanations are usually as clear as possible, though I am still unsatisfied with a few specific explanations. Bryson does a great job of linking things and people together, pointing out connections between branches of science and scientists themselves that keep the book moving though it is jam-packed with information.
Though Bryson is incredibly clear and communicates very well with his audience, I got entirely lost in the anthropology section. My first conclusion is that this is entirely due to my lack of interest and prior knowledge in the subject, but it's murky enough without dropping species' names here and there without keeping them straight. Scientists may confuse them, but the text at hand just becomes jumbled and decidedly un-fun. The ending of the book is also terribly anticlimactic. After gripping my interest for 400 pages or so, the book just kind of dropped off and left me hanging without a successful conclusion. The lack of a wrap-up is even more glaringly stark because the subject naturally lends itself so well to that sort of thing. It wasn't enough to make the book not worth reading, but its initial promise felt unfulfilled at the end.
Grade: B+
Bill Bryson
This book certainly aspires to a lot, attempting to answer all of life's biggest questions in readable prose and with simple explanations. I feel like I am a bit jaded in trying to review this book because so much of this book was, well, review for me. The target audience is definitely adults who have been out of high school and even college for a long time; I can still tell you who Mendeleev is and I'm actually familiar with Schrodinger's cat and what it stands for. Having taken college-level astronomy courses, I already knew most of the information presented in the section about the beginning of the universe and about how we know what we think we know. Bryson's book was entirely readable and enjoyable, but much of it was boring in light of my recent education. Ask me twenty years from now and I may have a different response.
That said, however, there are a few notable features of the book that make it worth reading if you're interested in learning about the puzzles of our planet. The book drops a lot of names accompanied by interesting characterizations which, though usually irrelevant to the actual science at hand, keep the text lively and fun. Bryson allows his dry wit to show through even when unraveling the secrets of life, and I never dreaded picking up the book. The explanations are usually as clear as possible, though I am still unsatisfied with a few specific explanations. Bryson does a great job of linking things and people together, pointing out connections between branches of science and scientists themselves that keep the book moving though it is jam-packed with information.
Though Bryson is incredibly clear and communicates very well with his audience, I got entirely lost in the anthropology section. My first conclusion is that this is entirely due to my lack of interest and prior knowledge in the subject, but it's murky enough without dropping species' names here and there without keeping them straight. Scientists may confuse them, but the text at hand just becomes jumbled and decidedly un-fun. The ending of the book is also terribly anticlimactic. After gripping my interest for 400 pages or so, the book just kind of dropped off and left me hanging without a successful conclusion. The lack of a wrap-up is even more glaringly stark because the subject naturally lends itself so well to that sort of thing. It wasn't enough to make the book not worth reading, but its initial promise felt unfulfilled at the end.
Grade: B+
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