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Thank goodness Bill Bryson has an insatiable thirst for knowledge. Here I thought he just walked all over the world and then wrote about it --- fortunately not. I've read about half a dozen of his books: A WALK IN THE WOODS, NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, NOTES FROM A BIG COUNTRY, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, even a dictionary he wrote. Not one of them failed to elicit embarrassing giggles, often at highly inconvenient, and public, times. So I jumped at the chance to read A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING. I mean, just look at the title! By the time I'd finished the Prologue, I was running to my husband exclaiming how incredible this book was going to be. I can't vouch for the accuracy of the content, but written the way it is, it undeniably makes learning fun. While his travelogue humor is much more likely to elicit wild bouts of guffaws, Bryson speckles A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING with amusingly constructed sentences and an occasional observation on the absurdity of what he has singled out to share with us.
Bryson cements the facts with quirky personalities and places. Lord Kelvin, for instance, father of the temperature scale that bears his name, virtually leaps alive on the pages, as do Richter, Pasteur and a host of others. Biographical trivia personalizes these gods of science and history. Did you know that Albert Einstein failed his college entrance tests the first try? That little factoid should make you feel better the next time your boss scoffs derisively at your presentation.
One of the chapters includes a fascinating look at the life and work of Charles Darwin, distilled down to the intriguing parts and expanded upon with charmingly obscure odd morsels. Here's a good one: after reading Darwin's ON THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES, an editor of the British Quarterly Review politely suggested he write on a subject that might be of more interest to a large audience, say a book about pigeons.
Aside from an abundance of famous names, you'll encounter some key minds wrapped in lesser-known countenances. For example, have you ever heard of the Reverend William Buckland? Likely not, but he made some exciting discoveries among the fossils of yore. How about his friend, Gideon Algernon Mantell, a country doctor and amateur paleontologist? You can find out about this man's tragic life in the shadows of a great discovery he made.
When Bryson isn't treating his readers to an intimate look inside some eccentric scientists' lives, he's wowing us with some truly staggering figures --- the number of atoms it takes to build a pinhead; the distance, in terms we can almost grasp, of Pluto from where you sit at your computer right now; the depth of the Earth's crust, or simply its age. (I can tell you without giving the plot away that it is very old.)
A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING starts with the birth of the universe and the creation of the Earth, and then carries through evolution, the discovery of elements, the counting of comets, the makeup of chromosomes and DNA, the mysteries of the seas, the composition of the air, and potential --- and historic --- natural disasters, to name but a few of the subjects covered.
I can't imagine what Mr. Bryson will tackle next. It seems he has covered literally everything in just this one volume. But I look forward to his future undertaking with unabashed eagerness.
--- Reviewed by Kate Ayers
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