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A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us.

His challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know. How do we know what is in the centre of the Earth, or what a black hole is, or where the continents were 600 million years ago? How did anyone ever figure these things out?

On his travels through time and space, Bill Bryson takes us with him on the ultimate eye-opening journey, and reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Reviews

  • 'A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide who loves his patch and is desperate to share its delights with us'

    Peter Atkins, The Times

  • 'A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again'

    William Hartston, Daily Express

  • 'Brims with strange and amazing facts...destined to become a modern classic of science writing'

    Ed Regis, New York Times Book Review

  • 'It deserves to sell as many copies as there are protons in the full stop that ends this review (at least 500,000,000,000).'

    Craig Brown, Mail on Sunday

  • 'The very book I have been looking for most of my life...Trunkloads of information, amazing stories and extraordinary personalities'

    Christopher Matthew, Daily Mail

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About the Author

Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and grew up there, but has spent most of his adult life in Britain. He has worked for a number of newspapers, including The Times and the Independent. His books on the English language include Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words, both published by Penguin. Bill Bryson is the author of several bestsellers including The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Big Country, Down Under, A Short History of Nearly Everything, One Summer: America 1927 and his memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His most recent bestseller is The Road to Little Dribbling.

Bill Bryson

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Blogs

Graphic artist Neil Gower on his book covers for Bill Bryson

Graphic artist Neil Gower has designed the entire backlist of author Bill Bryson's books. How did he find a visual style to cover so many different titles?
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Events

The Body: Bill Bryson, 15th February 2020
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Features

Bill Bryson: we shouldn't take calorie counting too seriously

The author of The Body explores the strange history of how a 19th century 'calorimeter' chamber came to inform nutritional science (but hasn't always worked).

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