Customer Reviews

A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

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For almost half of her 7.5 years, our daughter has gone to sleep as her mother delivers a lecture. Not the kind of lecture that follows bad behavior --- our kid just prefers facts to fiction. And so her mother gives a nightly discourse called "Bore Me to Sleep."

Our child knows that no policeman can enter the apartment and take Daddy's computer without a warrant. She knows about the banking crisis (though she prefers to believe that some financial instruments are called "high-heeled munis" and "credit default flops") why the seasons change, how your digestive system works, what fashion designers do, how everything is made of the same atoms, the movement of a bill through the House and Senate --- she's been exposed to a ton of random information.

She could easily be Bill Bryson's child.

Bryson got interested in how the world worked in the 4th or 5th grade, when an illustration in a textbook --- the Earth, with a wedge removed --- caught his interest. It would be nice to report that the book ignited lifelong learning. But it was a standard-issue textbook, not at all exciting. So it wasn't until he was a famous writer (author of a funny memoir called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and the even funnier A Walk in the Woods) that he wondered again how the world worked.

A few years and 475 pages later, he produced A Short History of Nearly Everything. My wife devoted a summer to it and read every word. I flunked Science repeatedly in school; it's enough for me to know that some important event occurred 500 million years ago.

Now he's created A Really Short History of Nearly Everything, and he's done me --- and you, and every curious kid burdened by a dull textbook or a brain-dead science teacher --- a huge favor. He's taken the greatest hits of his Big Book, trimmed the history so the text is mostly stories, and added illustrations that are variously helpful and amusing.

The result is a book that a curious 9-year-old can get something out of, a 12-year-old can read like a novel, and an adult can devour, blessing Bryson all the while for explaining the history of life on earth in such reader-friendly prose.

Among the cool contents:

The Big Bang was so massive that, in just three minutes, "98 percent of everything there is, or will ever be in the universe, has been produced."

A baby weighing 4 kilograms has about 400,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 atoms in its body.

"The average distance between stars is just over 30 million million [no, that's not a typo] kilometres. Of course it is possible that alien beings travel billions of kilometres to amuse themselves by planting crop circles in the English countryside or frightening some poor guy in a truck on a lonely road in Arizona. But it does seem unlikely."

"Fly from London to New York and you will step from the plane a quinzillionth of a second younger than the friends you left behind."

Weather, geology, space, energy, the atom --- it's all here, and all stunningly interesting. What's not here? Creationism. Bryson not only doesn't deal with it, he doesn't acknowledge it; for him, the world is 4,550 million years old. And evolution isn't a "theory," it's a fact: "The first visible mobile residents on dry land were probably like modern woodlice." (In Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and certain heartland states, a kid who brought this book into school could possibly be in trouble.)

Of greater concern to me than the science/religion schism: "99.99 per cent of all species that have ever lived are no longer with us." And people may be "bad news" for other species. Bryson's conclusion: "If you were designing an organism to look after life in our lonely cosmos, to monitor where it is going and keep a record of where it has been, you wouldn't choose human beings for the job."

This is not to say that the book ends with a downer. Just the opposite. What drives Bryson is the idea that life is exciting, mysterious and glorious. There's no way to read his book without wanting to keep it going for at least another 60 or 70 years.

Bill Bryson is not an author I've encountered before, though he's definitely one I'll be going back to. A Really Short History of Nearly Everything was originally published for adults back in 2003 and this particular version has just recently been adapted for kids. I didn't read the original, but this adapted version is awesome!


Though he doesn't really give you a short history of everything in the world, he does hit on main scientific points in history, such as what happened to dinosaurs, why the oceans are salty, how heavy the earth is, chain of life, genetics, planets, weather, atoms, asteroids, etc, etc, etc. Bryson then gives a short, simple explanation which reads very much like a story would, in a nice flowing manner. Not boring and scientific at all, which is a definite plus when it comes to non-fiction books for kids.


Filled with illustrations and photographs that accompany facts that are short and to-the-point. This would be a great resource for a classroom, homeschool setting, or library, especially while teaching different units. A great supplemental material.

Bill Bryson combines great intelligence, expansive knowledge, and a clear, conversational writing style to tell the history of Earth and human civilizations. With wonderful diagrams and illustrations, the book is great for kids and for grown-ups too! One point off for the editors of this edition, who didn't bother translating the book from British to American -- which, considering it's for young readers, was probably not the best choice.

I read (via audio CD) the adult version of this book and found it interesting. It covers the beginning of the universe and our place in it to how humans got to be as we are, and has some great insights (like in the beginning where they note that we are all collections of atoms that happened to get together to form us, and the same atoms used to be other things and will be other things again). It shows how "science" is as much an art and political and silly as it is "science", stripping away some of the awe without removing the wonder of the discoveries made before "modern technology" and our advantages today. All in all, great for some interesting knowledge and useful perspective.

This version is for younger readers. Our kids (10-15) weren't sure about it when they got it for Christmas, but they are picking at it and getting drawn in and I'm sure will read it cover to cover before long. Other toys are too distracting right now, but they do find it interesting and are reading it as kids do!

Written for teenagers. There is much interesting information, presented in a balanced manner, about basic science theories and their development. The scientists and their eccentricites are described. All written in an enjoyable manner. The biggest fault is that the associated cartoon drawings appear more appropriate for a forth grader, and the text for an eight grader. Still, I enjoyed it, even though I am a retired scientist.

I was awed and amazed when I read the "original" Bryson book from which this is taken. This abbreviated verson is a must for all of my elementary education majors as they learn to humanize science and make it an exciting and enjoyable topic. If I had any children for whom to buy gifts, this would be on the top of my list!

This is an absolutely outstanding work which should be required reading for evry student, and every person interested in the progress of science "as it happens". It is, truly, a towering achievement for which Mr. Bryson deserves an extraordinary credit.

I really enjoyed this book. I've read most Bryson books and this was loaded with great information, done in a way that a simple person like me could understand. Of all the interesting facts I gathered, my favorite was his explanation of the creation of diamonds. He said scientist's theorize that possibly the world's largest diamond deposit is under NE Indiana - pretty cool since I live in NE Indiana! I'm gonna start digging :)

Science, to many school-aged children, seems boring and
difficult. Most do not realize how extremely important and
amazing it really is. Bryson explored many different
topics ranging from the birth of the universe to dinosaurs
and many others. From his point of view, the Big Bang was
the start of the universe, and it only took one ten-
millionth of a trillionth of a trillionth of a trillionth
of a second to happen. Another explored topic was Newton
and his laws of motion. Incorporating silly cartoon
pictures and stories, Bill Bryson gives a rather detailed
but short history of the science of the world.

My favorite subject to study is science. I am always
asking "why" and "how." For any science lover, A Really
Short History of Nearly Everything is perfect. Bryson
writes in a humorous manner, but he is extremely
informative. I love the book's organization and how there
are countless pictures and extra pieces of information on
the sides of pages. The vocabulary fits perfectly with the
subject matter, and unfamiliar terms are defined finely.
The book covers many different aspects of science and does
so fluently. The only thing that I would improve about the
book is making it longer or having "part-two"!


Reviewed by a young adult student reviewer
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Teen books reviewed by teen reviewers

One of our favorite authors! This book will catch the interest of young and old,especially non science majors who'd like to "catch up",in a pleasant way, with the theories of how things got the way they are.