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A Short History Of Nearly Everything.

Corso

Corso

New Member
This is a new non fiction book by Bill Bryson. I can highly recommend it.
It is so profound that there have been rumours he didn't write it.
I think he did but it is his best work to date.
 
I saw this book late last week while browsing through Book World, as you do, in town. I'd also never heard of Bill Bryson but the title caught my eye, so I picked it up, opened it at a random page and read one page, which I find much better than reading the blurb, and it was so informative & well written that I walked away from the store feeling a little smater from just that one page.

I should of bought it then & there, but it was Fifty dollars and I wanted to do some resarch on the auther first. After a bit of net surfing, I've decided to go ahead & buy it so tomorrow or Tuesday, it shall be mine.

I'm also considering buying "Sunburned Country", Brysons traveling journal of Australia, I just love to see my country through the eyes of international travelers. It helps to remind me that I live in a wonderful paradise, whenever my mind focuses on the bad points (like Sydney :rolleyes: ).


BTW, I'd just like to say g'day to everyone here, as this is my first post. I know there's an intro section, but I much prefer to jump straight into discussions with my Five cents, it's just the way I am.
 
Same thing happened to me. I was browsing for books in the bookshop, and this one caught my eye. I'm very susceptable to catchy titles and eye-catching covers, and this one had both. I read the blurb (good idea, by the way, reading a random page instead of the blurb) and I liked it very much, but eventually I decided against buying it because I had just bought several books only minutes earlier (have to mind the budget, right?).

I put it on my mental 'Remember-This-Book-And-Look-It-Up-On-The-Internet-And-Then-Decide-Whether-Or-Not-You're-Gonna-Buy-It-List', but, of course, I completely forgot that I have the memory of a goldfish, so I forgot all about this book up until about 5 minutes ago, when I read this thread. To bad I'm broke now, but I'm sure I'm going to buy this book sooner or later!

Oh, and of course a warm welcome to you, Knowze Gungk , all the way from Australia! Isn't the internet just great, I'm actually discussing books with someone at the other friggin' end of the world!

Cheer, Martin

(I deny ever editing this post)
 
Fifty dollars?! My goodness! I don't blame you for not buying it, Knowze. It must have gold-leaf pages or something. I can't imagine paying fifty dollars for a book. Last weekend, I went to our local Salvation Army thrift store (charity shop) and came home with armloads of books at 50 cents apiece. I release a lot of them through Bookcrossing.com after I've read them so they have to be inexpensive. If I pay twenty dollars for a book, it's rare and it's a keeper.

I've never actually read anything by Bill Bryson, but I know he is extremely popular with American Expats in Britain. One of these days I'm going to have to read one of his books.

Welcome, Knowze, by the way.
 
Bill Bryson is a great author - his travel books are filled with wonderful anecdotes :) I have read all of his books (even the scholarly ones about language), excepting the last one cos i dont often buy hardbacks, and i would recommend them to anyone.

Knowze, the one on Australia is one of my faves, especially the bit where he tells the story of a serving Australian Prime Minister who just walked into the ocean one day and disappeared .... and the story about the little girl and the builders, but i'll leave you to read the joke for yourselves ;)
 
My dad got it for christmas - i'm about a hundred pages in. Its about as good as you could hope a book about astronomy, physics and chemistry(so far) to be. Some of the stories about the scientests eccentric ways are pretty cool. Its pretty easy to follow considering its subject matter.

As for Bill Bryson - the only other one i read was Down Under. It was a while ago and i cant remember much of it but i remember that it was enjoyable.
The story about the prime minister disappearing i can recall fine but the one about the girl and the builders escapes me
 
I've recently started this book as well, and I'm about 200 pas in, now. I like it very much. I've always interested myself in all things science, so this book, combining science and dry wit, really hit my soft spot (no, I'm not gonna tell where it's located, but I tell 'ya, it hurt like hell when the 400 page hardcover book hit it :))

Anyway, I finally understand what Einstein meant when he talked about 'spacetime', and how that can cause gravity, because of this book!

I love it, and I'll make sure I'll look into mr. Bryson's other works as well!

Cheers, Martin :D
 
I recently gave this book to my brother, and I'm waiting to see what he thinks of it... He's the science guy... ;)
 
Corso said:
This is a new non fiction book by Bill Bryson. I can highly recommend it.
It is so profound that there have been rumours he didn't write it.
I think he did but it is his best work to date.
Click to expand...


UNBELIEVABLE! This one has been checked out in six libraries.
 
Was thinking of starting a new topic on this subject...but thought, 'hold your horses,' let's see if it has been done before.....and of course it has.

Am resurrecting this thread therefore to ask if those who were comtemplainting buying it have now read it, and those that were reading it have finished.

Being a closet physicist (yes I tought myself particle physics for a 'laugh') I loved it, it also gave incredibly good basics on all the other science stuff (like chemistry, biology and a bit of plate techtonics and astronomy to boot).

I do regret not taking sciences for A-level and who knows I might have done had this been around then.

What are your thoughts?
 
I just finished it last week. I really liked it. I found myself turning back to the bibliography at the end of nearly every chapter for suggestions on further reading. I thought Bryson did a wonderful job of teasing his subjects without dumbing them down.
Also, there were a couple of chapters which really had me kind of freaking out. All of Yellowstone Park a volcanic crater waiting to explode and destroy a goodly chunk of the US? Scary!
 
funes said:
I just finished it last week. I really liked it. I found myself turning back to the bibliography at the end of nearly every chapter for suggestions on further reading. I thought Bryson did a wonderful job of teasing his subjects without dumbing them down.
Also, there were a couple of chapters which really had me kind of freaking out. All of Yellowstone Park a volcanic crater waiting to explode and destroy a goodly chunk of the US? Scary!
Click to expand...


I know what you mean - I read that feeling quietly pleased that I live in England. ;)
 
Bryson' other books??

hello, everyone,

What other books by the same authour would you recommend? Just found i lost my hold on this book (A short History of Nearly Everything :( ). so intend to read his other books first.

Any suggestion?
 
Notes From a Big Country (I think it's called I'm a Stranger Here Myself in the US) absolutely cracked me up. Read it a few years back. I wonder if it was as amusing to Americans as it was to me?
 
Freya said:
Notes From a Big Country (I think it's called I'm a Stranger Here Myself in the US) absolutely cracked me up. Read it a few years back. I wonder if it was as amusing to Americans as it was to me?
Click to expand...


Uh oh. :eek: I read the other one, where he walks around the perimeter of England.

Laughed a lot at first, but after about halfway I got tired of the "look at the funny little English people with their odd ways" attitude, which is kind of the premise of the book. But Bryson can be really funny, and parts of the book were memorable, like when he found a (known) Roman mosaic in a woodland. My memory of the book as a whole was that he didn't connect and engage with people to the extent that he could have, which would have made the book more interesting, more looking at individuals, less at generalizations.
 
I couldn't get into Notes from A Small Island. Preferred the structure of NFABC, the whole newspaper weekly column thing. Does wonders for my concentration span. Plus I was going through my 'Bah, Americans!' phase. Not sure if I'd find it as amusing these days... I'm off to try a few and see :p
 
Give Diamond's a try...

I haven't read A Short History..., but I will be making a purchase soon from what I'm reading in this thread. If you like explanatory books, i highly suggest Guns, Germs and Steel by Jared Diamond. I can't say there are many anecdotes, but it's a good insight into why things are as they are.
 
I listened to an unabridged version of it from audiobooks. My husband got it online and LOVED it. I fell in love with it too and bought a copy of the actual book. My husband teases me because I prefer archaic paper books to digital. :rolleyes:

~Witch
 
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