Reddit reviews A Short History of Nearly Everything: Special Illustrated Edition

When I read A Short History Of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson it struck me that almost all of the scientists and innovators mentioned in the book came from upper middle class or wealthy families. It appears that having the free time and resources to invest in an interest is a huge requirement to success.

I have come to the conclusion that the first society that figures out that by having a populace that does not have to worry about food, clothing, and shelter while also being provided with the resources to persue their interests, that society is going to blow past the rest of humanity by creating 20 Einsteins.

Same here for me. It took me a long time to get over religion after being born into it, as a Seventh Day Adventist.

Two things helped me. For 5 years I questioned my religion, but I tried very hard not to. I fully believed the line that the devil will try to trick you into denying christ, and I tried very hard to avoid that temptation. The first thing, was when I looked up Seventh Day Adventists on wikipedia, and it listed in the first couple of paragraphs that they are considered to be somewhat of a cult. That simple statement that is probably completely obvious to other people hit me like a ton of bricks. I knew instantly that it was true and it really opened my eyes.

Shortly after that, there was something going on in the local news about Scientologists (I cant remember what), and so I started reading about them to see what they were all about, and it suddenly dawned on me how that religion, as kooky as it sounds, is not really any different to the many other 'legitimate' religions out there that I was really familiar with.

So my faith in 'religion' was rocked, and I couldn't honestly believe in it any more, but I still wanted to believe in God, but after having my eyes opened, it didn't take long for me to realise, that if god did exist, he was either completely useless and couldn't help anyone, or he could help but didn't because he was a cold hearted bastard.

From the time I first started having doubts, to actually realising that I didn't believe god existed, was at least 10 years.

On a side note, although I read this book AFTER I'd already become an atheist, I recommend that everyone reads "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson. It not only covers almost every scientific discipline, but explains how we progressed through our understanding of science. He is not a scientist himself, and does a wonderful job of explaining everything in ways anyone could understand. I think I've bought this book at least 15 times, because I keep giving it away.

Here's a link to the book on amazon

Ah, I love non-fictin as well. Though most of my favorites are more science oriented, there should be a few on here that pique your interest.

• Salt: A World History - A fascinating history of humanity's favorite mineral. Wars have been fought over it, it sustained whole economies ... you'll be surprised to learn just how much of human history has been influenced by salt.
  
• A Short History of Nearly Everything - One of my favorite books. Bryson tells the story and history of science through amazing discoveries and stories about the quirky people who made them.
  
• Homage to Catalonia - A mostly auto-biographical account of George Orwell's time fighting for the communists in the Spanish Civil War.
  
• Capital: Vol. 1 Marx's seminal work and a logically sound criticism of capitalism. Whether or not you agree with his proposed solutions, his criticism is spot on. Depending on how leftist you are, you may have already read The Communist Manifesto. It's a nice introduction to Marx's ideas, but you should really go straight to the source and just read Capital.
  
• Why We Believe What We Believe - The neurology of belief, what could be more interesting? The authors go into great detail on how belief happens at the neurological level, as well as summing up nicely all sorts of findings from differing fields relating to belief. The most interesting part is the research the authors themselves conducted: fMRI scans of people praying, Buddhist monks meditating, Pentecostals speaking in tongues, and an atheist meditating.

Random selection of some of my favorites to help you expand your horizons:

The Demon-Haunted World by Carl Sagan is a great introduction to scientific skepticism.

Letter to a Christian Nation by Sam Harris is a succinct refutation of Christianity as it's generally practiced in the US employing crystal-clear logic.

Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor by Anthony Everitt is the best biography of one of the most interesting men in history, in my personal opinion.

Travels with Herodotus by Ryszard Kapuscinski is a jaw-dropping book on history, journalism, travel, contemporary events, philosophy.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson is a great tome about... everything. Physics, history, biology, art... Plus he's funny as hell. (Check out his In a Sunburned Country for a side-splitting account of his trip to Australia).

The Annotated Mona Lisa by Carol Strickland is a thorough primer on art history. Get it before going to any major museum (Met, Louvre, Tate Modern, Prado, etc).

Not the Impossible Faith by Richard Carrier is a detailed refutation of the whole 'Christianity could not have survived the early years if it weren't for god's providence' argument.

Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman are six of the easier chapters from his '63 Lectures on Physics delivered at CalTech. If you like it and really want to be mind-fucked with science, his QED is a great book on quantum electrodynamics direct from the master.

Lucy's Legacy by Donald Johanson will give you a really great understanding of our family history (homo, australopithecus, ardipithecus, etc). Equally good are Before the Dawn: Recovering the Lost History of Our Ancestors by Nicholas Wade and Mapping Human History by Steve Olson, though I personally enjoyed Before the Dawn slightly more.

Memory and the Mediterranean by Fernand Braudel gives you context for all the Bible stories by detailing contemporaneous events from the Levant, Italy, Greece, Egypt, etc.

After the Prophet by Lesley Hazleton is an awesome read if you don't know much about Islam and its early history.

Happy reading!

edit: Also, check out the Reasonable Doubts podcast.

How come no-one has mentioned A Short History of Nearly Everything yet?

You could try picking up a book like A Short History Of Nearly Everything. It is a history book, no more, no less. It does focus quite a bit on science, what its learned, but more importantly how we learn things scientifically. The speed of light for example.

Surprised I didn't see this:

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything

It's not as academically oriented as I think the OP would like, but it's a great read and surprisingly encompasses a lot. Bryson, if memory serves me, got his name in travel writing and he makes Short History very interesting and a good read.

Any of Bill Bryson's books are very good, but in a similar vein try:

Notes From a Small Island, an account of his time in the UK while traveling the length of the country.

In a Sunburned Country his travels in Austrailia.

Neither Here nor There his travels in Europe.

And though it is not a travel book, my personal favorite by Bryson is a A Short History of Nearly Everything, a history of science along the lines of the the Edmund Burke TV show "Connections" that is how every science textbook should be written. Spring for the Illustrated edition as long as you don't want to carry it everywhere you read, it's too big and heavy to be a good coffee shop read.

I've always heard good things about Edgar Rice Burrough's The Land that Time Forgot though I've sadly never read it myself. And, hey, it's free!

As far as science non-fiction, I consider A Short History of Nearly Everything to be absolutely essential since it covers so very much in a tremendously entertaining way. Also, if you are interested in physics but don't have any background in it I recommend any of Michio Kaku's books such as his latest Physics of the Future. He writes in an accessible manner that distills all the things that make the ongoing developments in physics exciting. I credit reading his books many years ago with getting me started in the sciences. Lastly, for learning about the universe, you can never go far wrong with Carl Sagan's Cosmos. It is easy to see from reading it why he is considered one of the greatest of the science popularizers.

I would recommend A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson. He's also a great travel writer, if that's something you might be interested in.

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything

This is the book you want:

A Short History of Nearly Everything

The thing is... Pluto is VERY far away.

>On a diagram of the solar system to scale, with Earth reduced to about the diameter of a pea, Jupiter would be over a thousand feet away and Pluto would be a mile and a half distant (and about the size of a bacterium, so you wouldn’t be able to see it anyway)

Source: Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything Got I love this book. Seriously, if you love science but are a layman, read it, if you're very highly specialized as a scientist, read it, if you hated science in high-school then definitely read it.

If you really don't know any physics I guess I can see how it could be a difficult read. I think you should push through it slowly and try to understand it. That kind of understanding can blow your world up so large it's beyond description. I found it to be leisurely but I've had an interest in physics for at least five years. If you want to learn more about physics after this I recommend Brian Greene.

But if you want to move on to something else that won't make you feel stupid maybe try A Short History of Nearly Everything which tells of the scientists lives as they discovered important things through history. A People's History of the United States, on a different track, gives you American history through the eyes of the common people. Just thought I'd throw that in.

Don't abandon every hard book - we're all guilty of it but pushing your mind through some tough ones is never something you will regret on your deathbed. Know what I mean?

Two good introductions to physics and science in general:

Bill Bryson (popular and quite funny): A Short History of Nearly Everything

Brian Cox (slightly more serious, but still a fairly easy read): Why Does E=mc2?: (And Why Should We Care?)

I loved this book: http://www.amazon.com/Brysons-History-Nearly-Everything-Paperback/dp/B0036WHHS2/ref=sr_1_4?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291147874&sr=1-4

the latest version is now illustrated, but I have not read it to offer an opinion: http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything-Illustrated/dp/0307885151/ref=sr_1_2?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1291147753&sr=1-2

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything

I think I saw this in the book "A Short History of Nearly Everything" by Bill Bryson (illustrated edition obviously).

As I recall, the little tabs circling the base of the hair closest to the camera are the tails of eyelash mites burrowed into the folicle. Fun times!

Thanks! A good place to start might be Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything.

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

http://www.amazon.com/Short-History-Nearly-Everything-Illustrated/dp/0307885151/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1333214326&sr=1-1

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Some good nonfiction: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Consider the Lobster by David Foster Wallace

The Devil in the White City by Erik Larson

Freakonomics by Steven Levitt

Personally, I think it's more difficult to not believe in God. I could give several reasons why though my own personal examples, but that'd be a fairly lengthy post.

One of the biggest things to me is looking at the earth, the universe and creation itself. Personally, when I was reading 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' by Bill Bryson, I found it as a affirmation of my faith. To me, the thought that the creation of the universe, the laws of physics and chemistry and all of our sciences that hold everything together is just a series of random luck seems laughable.