A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Richard Matthews read the audiobook version I listened to and man, oh man. In the words of one of my kids, “he sounds so smart, this man. But he’s probably just reading it all out of a book.”
It’s a fascinating book, you feel like a rock skipping across a very shallow but full pond of astounding facts, figures, and anecdotes. The introduction to large figures and ideas in the history of science is really enjoyable, sort of like a different take on Arthur Koestler’s “The Sleepwalkers.”
At a certain point large number fatigue sets in, where you feel like it’s one unimaginably large number after another preposterously large number, and I think he even acknowledges that fairly early on. But it was a great, engaging listen.