Book Review: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Again, I am attempting to catch up a bit with my book reviews. For some reason, I stagnated with these book reviews, even while I was reading some good new books. In some cases, there were some really good books that, for some reason or other, I never did quite get around to posting a review of. So I was determined to change that recently, and this blog entry is another effort to correct this. 

Here was a book that I admittedly unfairly did not read for far too long, feeling as I sometimes do a bit intimidated by the subject matter. Don't get me wrong: I love science. Astronomy fascinates me, and I find myself watching nature programs more than ever before. New technology also is extremely interesting and exciting to read about in articles or programs, as it may be. Hell, even the human body is fascinating, even though my own ignorance of the human body can be rather astonishing and highly embarrassing, made all the more embarrassing because of course I possess a physical human body. 

Finally, though, I decided to start reading it. However, it was the audiobook version of it, which is available (or was when I was reading it during my daily commutes) on Youtube.

And guess what? The book is fantastic! It is not intimidating at all. And Bill Bryson, one of my favorite authors, understands that many of his readers will surely feel as I do: fascinated yet a bit intimidated by science. He addresses it early on. And in typical fashion, he uses humor throughout, which made this an entertaining, as well as fascinating, read.

Bryson is very thorough. It should be noted that this is more a history of scientific and technological discoveries than a book summarizing the actual science behind all of these things. However, we do learn a lot about the science in the process of this history. It was both entertaining and informative, and that made this feel like a real enjoyable book to read. A real gem! Especially for somebody who....(ahem!), might not be so proficient in science. Yes, admittedly, I've always been quite fascinated by science. Just not intelligent enough to really have a solid understanding of it. 

For me, the best parts are (a) Bryson's sense of humor which,. as always, are sprinkled liberally throughout these pages, and add both color and comedic relief at points, and (b) it is not condescending in the least. Again, I wish that my abilities in science were stronger than they are. I try to alleviate that, and have read books on astronomy and about scientists, as well as having read a couple of books by Stephen Hawking. Well, technically I read them, although understanding them is another matter, now, isn't it? Also, I watch some television show - actual reality television - about nature programs and about the universe and other scientific wonders, and usually, I even feel like I came out of them understanding how the world, or the universe, or life, works just a little bit better than before watching the program. So I try, but again, my abilities are admittedly limited. Which is why I cannot recommend this book enough, if you are anything like me. You really will feel like you understand certain aspects of scientific thought, and gain a greater appreciation for the enormity of some of the discoveries in science over the course of our recorded history.  

This proved to be such a good and entertaining book, as well as informative and educational, that I decided to purchase a physical copy of the illustrated version of the book for my son.