Amazon.com
From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of Life and Trilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights--Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morris vs. Gould--that he finds literary gold. --Therese Littleton -- Dieser Text bezieht sich auf eine andere Ausgabe: Gebundene Ausgabe.

Sending this book out now as a ring.

Participants so far:

tranq1, Florida
Hopknot, Arizona
breeze144, Ontario
satnam, New Hampshire
MissGrace, Georgia
kbudgie, Malta
ntessq, Germany
sunny27, Australia
feryl, Australia
alice2623663, Australia

Sending this out to tranq1 as soon as I have her address.

sent to tranq1 - enjoy!

Received this in the mail today. I am looking forward to reading it.

I love Bill Bryson's travel books. And I like science. But I was a little disappointed with this book. There was so much to cover that each topic is covered very briefly and I found there were so many things in the book I couldn't remember any of it.

Sent to Hopknot

This came in the mail while I was away for Christmas and is now safely in my house. The mail man left this on the front porch so unfortunately, I don't know if the package was torn open in the post or by an animal. The book is still in good shape, but a little dirty and I think there are teeth marks! Anyway all the pages that need to be read a clean, the dirt is on the outside and only the packaging was torn. I will clean it up the best I can, but the book did survive whatever ordeal it went through.

I am almost done with the book I read on the plane and this one is next.

I found this book to be full of very interesting anedotes about the building of what we think we know about the beginnings and development of the earth and life. It was fascinating to learn about the people involved. I did find he meandered a bit and made it hard to keep track of where we were at times. I agree with tranq1 that it covers so much that is hard to remember.

This will be off to breeze144 as soon as I have the address.

Sent to breeze144 yesterday

Arrived here today!

Well this was a very long read for me. I really liked the information about the oceans, the formation and movement of the earth and the dangerous planet section. The other topics (space, the road to us, etc) I found to be rather boring and tended to skim these parts. What I did like was the 'useless facts' I gathered from this book because little anecdotes like that always amuse me. Also, I liked the humour and little comments Bryson injected into the book, which realy gave it a reading-friendly quality that textbooks don't have. Along those lines I also really enjoyed the history of the discussed people he included and how he pointed out the inaccuracies that have been reported and some that are taken as facts today. So often famous scientists are just names without a history or story and we assume they only studied one particuar area, but Bryson shows how some scientists seem to study many different areas. Also, Bryson mentions all sorts of little names who have not been credited for their work, or who's ideas were stolen, but this made me wonder, how do we know if his research is accurate? Couldn't it be flawed just like all the inaccurate sources he points out?

I liked his writing style and how much I learned from this book, but it was still very long and dry in some areas.

Will be sent along to satnam this week!

RELEASE NOTES:

Sent this book along on its travels!

This came in the mail last week. Sorry I wasn't able to journal sooner. I have started reading it, but expect it to be a longish read! :)

I hate to do this, but I'm going to send this on without finishing it. I know this would take me quite awhile to finish, and I have 2 other bookrings right now and at least 2 more on the way to me. My father also just gave me his copy of this book, so rather than hold this ring up, I'll read his copy when I can and make a journal entry at some point to let you all know what I thought of it.

I've PMed MissGrace for her address.

Mailed today to MissGrace!

I went out of town for the weekend and found this book waiting for me when I got home. I am currently in the middle of another book, but should finish in a few days. Thanks satnam for sending it and thanks keksi2 for including me in this bookring.

Phew! What a book! It took me forever to finish because I kept having to put it down after a few pages. I felt that my brain was so full of facts and numbers that it couldn't take in anymore. I admit that I did skip sections that had any mention of physics...just too many painful memories of all night study sessions in college only to get a barely passing grade... I do love Bill Bryson's writing style. Who else would descibe carbon as " the shamelessly promiscuous...party animal of the atomic world, latching on to many other atons (including itself) and holding tight, forming molecular conga lines of heart robustness--" I concur with Breeze144, if Bill Bryson were writing textbooks maybe some science classes (like physics) wouldn't have been such a nightmare.

Thanks keksi2 for sharing this wonderful book! I have kbudgie's address and will get this book on it's way this weekend.

Mailed to kbudgie yesterday.

Arrived safe today - I am looking forward to this one but I have a few other rings that have landed so I hope you can all be patient with me for a few weeks

I have this on my bedside table and am enjoying it though it is taking me ages to get through as Summer here is hectic as anything. I will move this along ASAP

Sorry for the delay

This book has washed ashore at the Lost Book Island after not being heard from for many months. This new arrival will be shown to a room and be allowed a bit of rest before being introduced to the many fun things to do here at the island.

All around there are books sipping cool drinks under shady palms while other books participate in a wide variety of beach sports. There is plenty of sand, surf and sun here for all of the lost and wayward books to enjoy.

It is hoped that very soon a new journal entry will come to rescue this book from the island and send it back out into the BookCrossing world so that it may continue on its journey. It is hoped that the new journal entry will tell all the interested parties where this book has been this long time and where it will be traveling to next.