A Short History of Nearly Everything Audiobook By Bill Bryson cover art

A Short History of Nearly Everything

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THE #1 NATIONAL BESTSELLER • One of the world’s most beloved writers and New York Times bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods and The Body takes his ultimate journey—into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.

“Brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing.”—The New York Times

In A Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail—well, most of it. In A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand—and, if possible, answer—the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us.

To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world’s most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining. History & Philosophy Thought-Provoking Natural History Cosmology Science Witty Nature & Ecology Astronomy Philosophy World Black Hole Inspiring Mathematics Short Stories World History

Critic reviews

“Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing.”
—The New York Times

“Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science.”
—People

“Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world’s biggest story.”
—Seattle Times

“Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable.”
—Simon Winchester, The Globe and Mail

“All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations.”
—National Post

"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can’ t help but enjoy his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind.”
—Ottawa Citizen

“Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned.”
—Winnipeg Free Press

“[A Short History of Nearly Everything] is a crash course in the basics of climatology, chemistry, biology, botany, geology and physics. Bryson’s enthusiasm is infectious, his explanations simple. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to get them.”
—The Citizen’s Weekly

Featured Article: The 20 Best History Audiobooks You Never Heard in School


While history is by definition the study of the past, no subject tells us more about the present, or is as exciting to follow in contemporary times. The range of subgenres within history writing is huge. Some authors cover a massive scope, while others zoom in to examine tiny, overlooked elements in a new way. Unlike your history class of old, these selections don’t demand memorization of names and dates. Read on for the best in our catalog.

Featured Article The 20 Best History Audiobooks You Never Heard in School
Accessible Scientific Concepts • Engaging Narrative Approach • Engaging British Accent • Humanized Scientific History

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History of Science, sure, but that certainly is not all by any means. It is the history of the remarkable men and women who contributed to a knowledge about ourselves, our planet and our place in time and space. It is a story about some of the greatest minds, their thinking, treachery, genius and stupidity. Never does the book seem like a lecture though at nearly every turn there is something to learn and fairly easily understand. The subjects are serious though Bryson's wit and humor should keep everyone smiling and chuckling all the way through. The content is great; the narration superb.

A Classic

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The unabridged version of Bryson's book is incredibly entertaining and informative. Best of all, you can listen to it in chunks, put it away for a few days, then continue without having to remember characters' names and such. VERY worthwhile.

Outstanding!

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Bill Bryson is a personal favorite of mine-- I find I always laugh as much as I learn with him, often on topics that I previously had no interest. This book is no different, filled with amazing scientific truths and celebrity gossip. To bring it down to reality (after all, can anyone really grasp how large a billion of anything is?) he loads the book with metaphors which helps 'C' students in science keep up. In fact, Bryson comes across as that one college professor on campus that everyone clamours to take no matter how dry his subject seems to be.

So why four stars and not five? It is more a problem with the audio format than the book. There are so many numbers and so many facts that I found myself wanting to refer back to certain sections, a task not easy in MP3. The joy of a book is the not just the tactility and smell, but also the ability to hop about, re-experiencing parts of the book that you found fascinating but had trouble relating it to a friend. I love audio books, but this one is no perfectly suited for this medium.

The one drawback with audio

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Wow. It really is a short history of nearly everything. Well, nearly everything related to science - with an emphasis on physics and biology. I'm pretty familiar with the physics side of things and was impressed by his accurate capture of the state of the field in a very understandable form. Biology is not something I know that much about, but that portion of the book was still quite understandable. It might seem like these subjects would be more than a little dry in a book this length, but Bryson's characterizations and perspective made the whole thing quite enjoyable. Very highly recommended. This is the best book I've read (listened to) in quite a long while.

Fascinating...

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Witty, funny, at times profound and thought-provoking. Covers a wide range of topics from scientific and historic.

Deeply enjoyable with a wonderful narrator.

Enjoyanly, educational

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