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4 out of 5
by
Sarah
from
Baltimore, MD | Aug 28, 2007
Bryson's dead serious: this is a history of pretty much everything there is -- the planet, the solar system, the universe -- as well as a history of how we've come to know as much as we do. A book on science written by a non-scientist, this a perfect bridge between the humanities and the natural sciences. A course in the history of science should be mandatory for every teenager, and this should be the textbook.
Yes, it's a big, chunky book. No, it can't be trimmed down any further: when you're addressing cosmology, earth science, ecology and zoology, with healthy doses of chemistry and physics, plus the historical development of each, you're going to end up with a doorstop of a text, no matter how smoothly written. The wonder of Bryson's writing is that the reader doesn't get lost in these sweeping surveys. When name-dropping, Bryson always gives a short description of the person in question; if mentioned earlier in the book, he drops in a quick reminder to the reader. This is fabulously effective at giving the names some context, not to mention a little personality.
And indeed, isn't that what science education needs most: more humanity and less intimidation? Those science-phobes out there who freely admit their near-complete ignorance of the subject should do themselves a favor and buy a copy of this book. No, don't get it from your library. There's so much here you'll want to have a copy on hand to refer to later.
To those nerds in the audience -- myself included -- don't think your degrees mean you can pass this one over. As hyper-specialized as science has become, it's refreshing as hell to step back and take a look at things with new eyes. While there's not a lot here I haven't encountered before, there's a lot of information about how our current theories were developed that I didn't know.
(Also? It's heartening to read about the social ineptitude, blind spots, and how utterly incompetent many of these scientist were in other aspects of life. Makes me feel better about never finishing that PhD -- at least I have a life.)
Thorough, humorous, engaging, and educational: what's not to like?
19 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Foster
from
Pasadena, CA | Oct 12, 2007
This is one of the most enjoyable books I have ever read. There, I said it
Bryson's book combines the best qualities of science writers like Attenborough, Diamond, Durrell, and Wilson; presenting the information with the wit he is most known for. It is an amazing achievement to condense the entire base of human scientific knowledge into 478 pages, but Bryson has done it. I completely agree with Tim Flannery, who writes on the jacket that "all schools would be better places if it were the core science reader on the curriculum." I certainly would have gained much if I had read it when I was 15.
This is one of the few books that has truly challenged what I had previously held to be conventional wisdom (at least in my own mind). Two main changes have come about:
1. I had always been jealous of the "true" zoologists, such as Audubon and Darwin, who were around when the world was as yet unexplored, and discovering a species was as simple as being the first to walk into a patch of forest. I left science because the idea of being tied to a sterile lab held no interest for me. However, after reading Bryson's vignettes of early scientific/zoological exploration (much of which was both comic and tragic), I realize that those days weren't quite as idyllic as I had imagined.
2. Bryson does a "good" job of scaring the hell out of you by showing just how precarious our daily existence really is. I probably shouldn't say this, but it puts such problems as global climate change into context when you read how an eruption of the supervolcano beneath Yellowstone National Park would wipe out most of the life on earth in a painfully slow manner; especially when Bryson describes how this eruption is overdue by 30, 000 years by historical average.
Combined with those two new impressions, I am left with the following conclusions, and a slightly rearranged outlook on life.
First off, it is clear that science benefits from a large degree of serendipity. We as a species/civilization have been lucky to have some truly great minds working on deciphering the way our world works. Some of these are household names [Newton, Halley, Einstein], some are not [Henry Cavendish, Rosalind Franklin]. However, as with everything that us humans put our hands on, this endeavor wasn't perfect. Egregious mistakes, pathological lying, childlike rivalries and tantrums - they all occurred. On balance, whether they helped or hurt the effort isn't clear. But what is clear is that our present level of understanding was by no means assured.
Secondly, the fact that life is so tenuous makes one a little more philosophical. Since I've finished the chapter about Yellowstone and similar catastrophic threats, I find myself asking "what if today is the day?" It can be rough when you get on the bus at the end of a particularly annoying workday, when the disagreements were petty and you didn't get much done, and think "is that what I did on the last day of my life?"
Thankfully, that attitude only lasted for a short while, until I was able to reframe it in a more productive way. Now I tell myself not to worry about big problems that might happen in the future, because I know that we will be hit by a meteor, we will experience a supervolcano eruption. It's best to just enjoy every day, doing what you really know to be what it is that you want to do. Does that mean that I won't recycle anymore, that I will leave the tap running while I brush my teeth? No! Because doing things to reduce my impact makes me feel good, that I'm thinking about society's needs - not just my own. It's what I want to do.
So, in an incredible way (that even Bill Bryson probably didn't predict) this book can really change your life.
30 people found this review helpful
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3 out of 5
by
Paul
from
Nottingham, England, The United Kingdom | Oct 6, 2007
Okay, so here's my Bill Bryson story. I was in The Gladstone, a public house not too far from this very keyboard, with my friend Yvonne, who will remain nameless. We had been imbibing more than freely. A guy approached our table and asked me in a sly surreptitious manner if I was him. Him who? Was I Bill Bryson? Now it is true that I bear a very slight resemblance
http://www.speakingvolumes.co.uk/images/...
but you could also say that about Benny from Abba
http://www.abbaexpress.co.uk/benny/benny...
and a zillion other white guys with beards and gently rounded fizzogs. Anyway, without missing a beat I said yes, I was him. So the guy immediately asked me if I'd sign two of his books, and before I could say "Come on mate, I'm not actually American, can't you bleedin well tell?" he had zapped out of the pub. Only to zap straight back with two hardbacks of Bill's deathless works. What could I do? He opened them up reverentially and told me one would be for him and one for his mother. Friends, I signed them - "Best wishes, your friend Bill Bryson". He was so grateful, so very very pleased. We drank up and got the hell out of there. I look back on this disgraceful incident and shudder. That's the last time I'm impersonating a famous author.
Short note on the book in question:
There was no way our Bill could write a gently humorous book about the history of all of science without sounding like a fairly smirky know-it-all, so that's what he does sound like, which can be just a trifle wearing. LOTS of good info in here, but it's like being forced to live on Indian takeaways and nothing else, great for a while and then GET ME A SANDWICH! Or like being stuck on a long airplane ride with a very garrolous and opinionated fellow who thinks he is the very model of the modern travelling companion, regaling you with insightful and humourous anecdotes by the bucketful while you're wondering if it would be so bad if you faked a heart attack and you could whisper to the flight attendant "I'm okay really but GET ME AWAY FROM THIS GUY!"
14 people found this review helpful
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4 out of 5
by
Martine
from
Brisbane, 04, Australia | Sep 15, 2007
I know virtually nothing about science, so it was with some trepidation that I began reading this introduction to life, the universe and everything, which deals with questions such as "How did the universe originate?" and "How much does planet Earth weigh?". I ended up enjoying the hell out of it, as Bryson's writing style is so witty and accessible that it frequently made me laugh out loud. He has a knack of telling you not just about major developments in the history of the universe, but also about the scientists who made the discoveries he describes, who were frequently larger-than-life characters leading very tragic lives. To be honest, I enjoyed the asides on the scientists more than the science itself, but that didn't stop me enjoying reading all the bits about the Big Bang, early life forms and quarks. It also gave me an understanding of how random and unpredictable life really is, and how little mutations can lead to massive changes. Impressive stuff.
6 people found this review helpful
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5 out of 5
by
Bookshop
from
Switzerland | Jul 29, 2007
Bill Bryson is one of my favourite travel writers. He is immensely funny. He's an American married to a Brit and lives in the UK now. That has an influcence is his writing: he has taken up the dry, self-depreciating humour of the Brits while, at times, remained blunt and straight-forward, as Americans do.
This is his first attempt to write something other than travelling. The book is about science, general science for general public. It covers everything from astronomy to zoology, from the universe to whatever -the-name-is -for-things-smaller-than-atoms in its 573 pages. Notes, bibliography, and index occupy another 113 pages. Thus, as you can imagine, it is very brief and general for each of the topics.
But the book is suprisingly well arranged and deeply reseached. That's the amazing thing about this book: it is brief but not shallow; it explains without going into unnecessary techinal details; and it flows smoothly from one branch to another. He must have understood the subjects very well in order to be able to do that and thus, this book is invaluable in term of education.
In term of readibility, he peppers the content with human-interest stories. For example, little-known facts about scientists (do you know that Einstein worked as the Swiss patent clerk for seven years and that he was denied a promotion, a job as a university lecturer and then, as a high-school teacher?), simple explanation (" On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with the Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over 300 meters away and Pluto would be two and a half kilometers distant ..."), etc.
I cannot recommend this book enough: both for its educative content and for its fine writing style. This is definetely the book to enjoy and to keep.
5 people found this review helpful