The recap
Bill Bryson sets out to answer a question most of us quietly avoid: how do we actually know what we know about the world? Beginning with the Big Bang and ending with the arrival of human beings, he tours the size of the universe, the age of the Earth, the inner life of atoms, drifting continents, extinction and the stubborn tenacity of life. What makes the journey special is that he cares as much about the people as about the findings, and the book is crowded with brilliant, eccentric, quarrelsome and often overlooked scientists whose persistence, luck and occasional pettiness pushed knowledge forward. Bryson writes as a curious outsider rather than an expert, which lets him share genuine astonishment without talking down to anyone. Readers come away with a sense of how improbable and precarious our existence is, and of how much remains unknown. Some figures and open questions have moved on since 2003, but its sweep and good humour hold up remarkably well.
Why read it
For anyone who drifted away from science at school and secretly regrets it, or who wants one warm, funny book that ties the cosmos, the planet and the cell together.
Fun facts
- 01
Bryson traces the idea to a long flight over the Pacific, when he gazed at the moonlit ocean and realised he knew almost nothing about the planet he lived on.
- 02
He spent about three years asking questions and reading books and research papers before writing it.
- 03
It won the general prize of the 2004 Aventis Prizes for Science Books, worth £10,000, presented at the Royal Society in London.
- 04
In 2005 it also won the European Union's Descartes Prize for science communication.
- 05
It was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize for non-fiction in 2004.
