Overview

Now revised and updated to take in the major scientific developments of the past decade, A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's classic quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Winner of the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communcation Prize, it became a huge bestseller, and remains one of the most popular science books of all time. Bill Bryson's challenge was to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there wasn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. On his travels through time and space, he encounters a splendid collection of astonishingly eccentric, competitive, obsessive and foolish scientists, and takes us on an eye-opening journey through time and space, revealing the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

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Reviews

'Mr Bryson has a natural gift for clear and vivid expression. I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written.' Sunday Telegraph 'A fascinating idea, and I can't think of many writers, other than Bryson, who would do it this well. It's the sort of book I would have devoured as a teenager. It might well turn unsuspecting young readers into scientists. And the famous, slightly cynical humour is always there.' Evening Standard 'A genuinely useful and readable book. There is a phenomenal amount of fascinating information packed between its covers ... A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again.' Daily Express 'Of course, there are people much better qualified than Bill Bryson to attempt a project of this magnitude. None of them, however, can write fluent Brysonese, which, as pretty much the entire Western reading public now knows, is an appealing mixture of self-deprecation, wryness and punnery.' Spectator 'Impressive in his terse concreteness ... Hugely readable and never obfuscating.' The Sunday Times

Author Information

Bill Bryson is much loved for his bestselling travel books, from The Lost Continent to Down Under, and Notes from a Small Island earned a particularly special place in the nation's heart (a national poll for World Book Day voted it the book that best represents Britain). A Short History of Nearly Everything won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize. He has also written a memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, acclaimed books on language and social history (At Home). Born in Des Moines, Iowa, he now lives in the UK with his wife and family, and was awarded an honorary OBE for services to literature. www.billbryson.co.uk

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