Bill Bryson
A Short History of Nearly Everything
A very readable romp through the universe's history, and future, from the wider universe to sub atomic particles and how they can fly through space and time instantaneously. I think. As ever when you read things like this you think wow - how can this have just happened. Maybe there is a higher being. But that's the default answer for anything humans don't know and anyway who made them. A skipped history of human evolution too and how amazing we are. Pity we don't use that for good. It's a while since I read any Bill B and forgotten how readable he is. All our facts are presented with anecdotes around the people who discovered them, or at least wrote them up, as some majorly amazing facts seem to be hidden by those who thought them up for decades for various reasons. It's the people facts and how odd we all are, even brainbox scientists, who make this book fascinating. Well worth a read. Along the way I was wondering how much our thinking has changed as this is 15 years old. One thing I think that's been agreed recently is that unless we have very recent African ancestors we're quite a lot part Neanderthal which may explain rush hour tube train behaviour. Sorry, a cheap joke at the expense of Neanderthals who I'm sure would never have pushed their way past people at Bank Station, or through the marshland or glacier that would have been there way back when.
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