A short history of nearly everything.

Having been a fan of Bill Bryson’s travel books I was surprised when he released “A short history of nearly everything,” as it isn’t very often that a writer ventures so far outside of their comfort zone. The book takes you through a journey of our history and the history of the universe around us. In this book Bryson is able to make what are perceived as the boring and too complicated aspects of science such as particle physics, and make them interesting and understandable. He does this by using language that is easy to understand, and although many scientists would think he has oversimplified some of the topics, he is obviously trying to educate a wider audience than just the science community. What makes this book so enjoyable to read is the humour that Bryson is able to write with, and it is very rare to find science written in this way. It is the obscure statistics and odd facts about the wide ranging topics that make this book so interesting. For instance while writing about evolution he adds facts such as ”it's important to keep in mind that regardless of these so-called improvements we are still 98.4 percent genetically indistinguishable from the chimpanzee." These astonishing facts are able to back up what he is writing, but do so in such a way that they are amusing and different to the way in which science has been written about in the past. While providing insight into the history of science Bryson's most interesting observations lie in his description of scientists and their peculiarities and obsessions. Giving even the most informed reader a different view of the people they have read about in text books and learnt about in the classroom.

Submitted by Michael Dowling