What do You think about A Short History Of Nearly Everything (2004)?
A Short History of GoodreadsSurveys show that nearly 40% of all Americans believe the history of literature started in 2007, when Amazon sold the first Kindle; indeed, Amazon Fundamentalists hold it as an article of faith that Jeff Bezos actually wrote all the world's e-books over a period of six days. This is, of course, nonsense. It has been conclusively demonstrated that literature is far older than the Kindle; books already existed thousands of years ago, which were the direct ancestors of today's e-publications. For example, careful examination reveals that The Odyssey and The Gospel according to Saint Mark are primitive versions of Percy Jackson and the Sea of Monsters and Bared to You. Similar relationships have been shown to obtain for all modern books.Problems arise, however, from the fact that these archaic protobooks still exist today; indeed, some have adapted to the e-reader environment and begun to thrive there. It is entirely too easy for an unsuspecting internet shopper to purchase a copy of Pride and Prejudice, incorrectly believing that it is part of the Twilight series. From the standpoint of formal literary theory, it is admittedly incorrect to say that Pride and Prejudice is "worse" than Twilight. They are simply different; neither one is "worse" than the other, since they have developed in different environments. From a practical point of view, however, a person who buys a Jane Austen novel is almost certain to be disappointed. There are no vampires or werewolves; sex is barely even hinted at; most upsettingly of all, the book will be full of long sentences and difficult words. The combination of these factors can only lead to an intensely unpleasant reading experience, which may discourage the reader from making new Amazon purchases for days or even weeks afterwards. Particularly given the fragile state of the US economy, this is evidently not an acceptable state of affairs.People have always exchanged recommendations and warnings with their friends, but it became clear that a more systematic approach was needed. There had to be a place where book-consumers could post advice and help each other avoid these infuriating mistakes, so that everyone could be sure of reading nothing but up-to-the-minute YA erotic paranormal romances. Thus was born Goodreads.This work by Manny is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License
—Manny
A sign that a book is really, really, really gripping you is when you find yourself talking to people about it. And by ‘talking to people about it’, I don’t just mean recommending that they read it, but actually spouting out things you’ve read in its pages, developing arguments from what you’ve learnt and generally just crow-barring whole tracts of knowledge into conversations which, left to their own devices, would have happily meandered elsewhere.Such a book is Bill Bryson’s ‘A Short History of Everything’.For the last week or so I’ve been reading it I’ve felt a little like E.L.Wisty, talking in Peter Cook’s boring, nasal voice about this marvellous book I’ve read and how it contains all these interesting facts.This is a book which tries, and for the most part succeeds, in making very complex areas of science meaningful to a layman such as I. So we have the creation of the universe, the vastness of space, the dawn of life, the changing environments of our planet, the development of life, various extinctions and the complex evolution of man. It’s incredibly illuminating stuff, an array of complex theories broken down and put into reach of those of us who don’t have PHDs (although I’m only slightly more au fait with quantum physics than I was before I started reading that section – but then there are quantum physicists who freely admit they don’t properly understand it.) Bryson grabs the attention by turning it almost into a history lesson of discoveries , so we have thumbnail sketches of Darwin, Halley, Einstein and other great pioneers – many of whom I’d never heard of. That combined with Bryson’s eye for the outstandingly curious, then this ends up as constantly amusing and astounding read.Now if you’ll excuse me I’m off to bother some passers-by, I’m in possession of some facts that they might find very interesting.
—F.R.
This is an immensely readable book with a truly monumental amount of information. While reading it, one might wish to remember all its content, but it's written in a way allowing the reader to pick up the volume and start reading at any point, according to his interests, though Bryson relays all subjects in captivating and available way, with a big dose of humor.This is a weighty book - 600 pages - but Bryson's not joking. He really tries to cover everything, from the beginning of the universe and the nature of our solar system and planet, through biological evolution of our species and the effects of us being here, both on nature and other creatures. Needless to say, he does an extremely good job of captivating the reader's attention from the first page and has no difficulty laying out complex concepts in a way that every reader will understand. Also, aside from all the facts, the book is also full of trivia and anecdotes about the experiments and the scientists who performed them. In the introduction, Bryson recalls his childhood and remembers how he was fascinated by the image of a cross-section of our planet, but at the same time put down by the nature of the book that contained it. The dry presentation of the facts, that were accompanied only by a set of exercies to test the gained knowledge, puzzled him. How did these people know how our planet looks from the inside? And who exactly were they?In his book, he accomplishes an important thing, one of the most important things - he presents the data while at the same time never letting go of the terribly exciting feeling of discovery, and presenting information about the discoverers themselves. It's obvious that he did a lot of research, but it's also obvious that these things fascinated him, and he grabs the reader's hand and runs headlong into the unexplored. And it is a world full of wonders.If schoolteachers shared Bryson's joy and flair we might have ended up with a whole lot more of biologists, physicists, chemists and geologists. I don't know if it's the best book of it's kind, but it is certainly an achievement worth re-reading.
—Maciek
