I finished reading Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” about a month ago. The 500 page tome has been perched on the corner of my desk in this time, awaiting a blogged review. I’ve found myself reluctant to write about it, though, and I just figured out why: if I write about it, that means I’m done with it. I’ll have to return it to my mother, from whom I borrowed it, and it will be out of my life. This makes me sad.
As I’ve written, I am blessed with an insatiable desire to learn and cursed with a terrible memory. In order to compensate for this, I read at all times. If I need to walk down the hall to the bedroom and then back to the living room, I’ll look around for a book to read a half page of during the brief journey. I read while brushing my teeth. I read before getting out of bed in the morning. I read while writing blog entries. I read fiction, non-fiction, how-tos. When pressed, I’ll read the ingredients on shampoo bottles or candy bar wrappers. I read very fast, so I go through books faster than I can stock them. Need more input. Johnny 5 is alive.
Bill Bryson’s “A Short History of Nearly Everything” satisfied my desire to learn, fully, for a period of several weeks. I read every page slowly, sometimes twice. Somehow, in a mere 500 pages, he summarized all of the natural sciences and tied them all together. I now understand where quantum physics intersects with geology, where atmospheric sciences meets molecular biology, where evolutionary development influences psychology. There were a thousand data points in “A Short History” that I wanted to have etched on my permanent mental record. Cyanobacteria invented photosynthesis. Hipparion’s migration is explained by plate tectonics. Yellowstone has a huge, active volcano under it, and it’s due to erupt now. Nobody understands quantum theory, though it explains everything. Sadly, I now understand none of this, because a month has passed.
More than anything else, “A Short History” impressed upon me how tiny, insignificant, and utterly useless than mankind is in the scale of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, even the planet. There are a hundred different ways that we could all be snuffed out in the next day, and it’s nothing more than sheer luck that we won’t be. (Or will we?) The universe has not come together mystically to allow us to exist; we are a byproduct of brief, transient circumstances, like a slime mold on a banana peel tossed from a car window. That’s not to belittle the human condition; on the contrary, I think it means that we’ve got to make the most of our limited time and circumstances.
This book was so good that I forgive Mr. Bryson for making fun of me in “A Walk in the Woods.” It’s so good that I think I may read it again. Now.
Where did Mr. Bryson ake fun of you in that book?
It was the one that turned me on to Bill Bryon. It is still my favorite of his.
Oh, you’re hyperlexic too? Yeah, I grew up reading the newspaper at breakfast, then the classifieds, then the Nutrition Facts on the back of the box (including the boilerplate “this assumes a 2000 calorie diet” notices).
Hm, I’ll have to pick that up, especially since I too, tend to be a bit on the hyperlexic side. If that’s the kind of thing you’re into, Waldo, you might also like “The Undercover Economist” by Tim Harford, who writes “Dear Economist” for the FInancial times. It’s actually a really good read (I’m an econ minor) in that
a. It isn’t boring and
b. It explains basic economic principles in intersting, everyday terms and then applys them to pretty much everything. Every Econ professor I’ve had has recommended this book, and I found it to be not only really helpful in my classes, but an interesting, engaging read.
Waldo,
I am in the middle of A Short History and also find it completely absorbing. A slow read to be savored. I agree with your comments, but the other thing I love about this book is it is also a history of science, and all of the stories and personalities that make up the history.
A few other books that are in the same vein that are at the top of my favorites list: John McPhee, Rising From the Plains (which I found similarly reassuring about our lack of importance in the grand scale of things); William Manchester, A World Lit Only By Fire; and Singh, Fermat’s Enigma.
All of Singh’s books are great — I just finished Big Bang.
Waldo, you may also enjoy An Incomplete Education. My husband recieved this as a gift while in college and I’ve read it many times since I met him. It is just as good as a “open anywhere and read” as it is a sit down and just our over it kind of book.
Thanks! I’ve just added so many books to my list of books to read. (I actually maintain a list — it’s the only way I can keep them straight.)
I wish I knew the term for books about the natural sciences and how they relate to one another and to humans. “Krakatoa,” “A Crack in the Edge of the World,” “Guns, Germs and Steel” — I live for books like these. I’m excited at the mention of Simon Singh because that’s another author with a few books’ worth of similarly-styled knowledge that I can mine.
Damn, me too. At the age of 11, I’d exhaust that cereal box. “Hyperlexic,” eh? Seems like a good term.
Erika, I just read up a bit on “An Incomplete Education” and it looks wonderful. There are so many topics about which I’m really stupid that this book appears to cover in much detail. I’m glad that a book like this exists. :)
All of this reading is, I think, leading up to Stephen Wolfram’s “A New Kind of Science.” I have a goal of reading it and understanding it. I know that if I tried now I’d fail, so I’ve been prepping my brain for a few years.
Waldo,
I have “A Walk In The Woods” as a book on tape. It’s even funnier / stranger in Bryson’s psuedo-British accent. I wish I still had a cassette tape player in my truck so I could go find where he makes fun of you. Honestly, it didn’t register the first time and that’s weird since we were both on the AT the year of Bryson’s “hike” and you’d think a passage that mentioned you would have screamed at me.
Skyline
He doesn’t mention me by name — he settles for describing me (if memory serves) as some crazy kid with a laptop and a GPS (the GPS…not true) somewhere south of him on the AT.
Relished A History of Almost Everything. I was so taken, it was my Christmas present to everyone in the family two years ago,10 HARDBACKs no less.
Bryson’s travel books are a bit mean spirited – much prefer Tim Cahill such as Pecked to Death by Ducks, but Bryson’s language books – The Mother Tongue and Made in America, which I read many years ago, are still favorites – great history nuggets and very, very funny.
I taught Waldo and his twin brother to read when they were two years old. I suppose if hyperlexia is the worst consequence of that, teaching him so young was a good thing to do! If you want to know what method I used, email me through my website. I’m happy to share.
(By the way, I totally forgot that I owned that book! My best hope is to live long enough to get through my “to be read” heap of books, so hold onto that one until I get around to asking for it back.)
I remember hearing about the laptop thing when I was attending LEC. Seemed like a pretty good senior project to me!
I’m not sure I’d recommend Wolfram. The poor guy labored in secret for ten years and then came out with a book that basically restated a lot of stuff that had mostly already been known and was in fact considered fairly banal… and Wolfram’s book was unfortunately peppered with lots of grandiosity. It has not aged well.
Yeah, but it’s a lot of stuff that’s banal to people a lot smarter than I. :) That said, I haven’t read anything about the book since it was released — I’ll have to read through some reviews in the past few years and learn more about the current view of the tome.
I haven’t finished “A Short History…” yet, but did start on “Made in America” (Bryson). Would suggest it.
I just finished “The Know-it-All” by AJ Jacobs, about the writer’s quest to read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica. I’d highly recommend it, as it’s very funny, yet full of inane facts and stories, much like Bryson… yet maybe younger and hipper.
Waldo et al,
Get it on tape/cd/mp3! Listening to Bryson read his brilliance give the whole thing a new feel and makes it all the more enjoyable. Imagine learning about quantum physics and paleontology in the gym, on the road etc…
“The universe has not come together mystically to allow us to exist; we are a byproduct of brief, transient circumstances, like a slime mold on a banana peel tossed from a car window.”
I guess that is where the whole issue of Faith comes into play; whether we are indeed a random result of random mutations in the universe. Or, are we the grand design of an unseen Maker? The age old question that philosophers, pundits and men of the cloth have been debating for centuries.
For me, its too hard to see the utter complexities of our amazing world and not think there is design in the process. (Not that it should be taught in the classroom)
I imagine the slime mold on the banana peel the same way. Such luck that it thrives on potassium, as provided by the banana! Amazing that the peel landed in the shade, rather than in the harsh sun, preventing the mold from withering in the noonday heat! What are the odds of this species of banana evolving? That this precise banana would have been shipped from South America to Charlottesville, VA, where this very guy would buy it, eat it, and dispose of the peel in this very spot! Clearly, this is destiny.
The problem is the premise that what is now so is inevitable. In doing so, one can only look at the past events that led up to the present and conclude that it’s all just so perfect. The thing is that we are here because we are the creature that happens to thrive under the current coincidence of universal elements.
In thousands of years — perhaps sooner — Earth will no longer support us, and some other creature will rise to power. They will marvel that their 86% nitrogen atmosphere exists, and that the life-giving x-rays from Betelgeuse are just the right strength, and hold these things up as evidence that clearly the universe has been designed just for them.
A Short History” impressed upon me how tiny, insignificant, and utterly useless than mankind is in the scale of the universe, the galaxy, the solar system, even the planet. There are a hundred different ways that we could all be snuffed out in the next day, and it’s nothing more than sheer lucky that we won’t be.
Please try to eplain that to Ed Risse.
Hyperlexic, huh. Well, I never knew that was my problem. A new word.
The undercover Economist is excellent.
I read “A Short History of Time” and concluded that the author was mistaken.