A Short History of Nearly Everything

Possibly the best scientific primer ever published. * Economist *‘A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide who loves his patch and is desperate to share its delights with us’ – Peter Atkins * The Times *‘A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again’ – William Hartston * Daily Express *‘Brims with strange and amazing facts…destined to become a modern classic of science writing’ – Ed Regis * New York Times Book Review *‘It deserves to sell as many copies as there are protons in the full stop that ends this review (at least 500,000,000,000).’ – Craig Brown * Mail on Sunday *‘The very book I have been looking for most of my life…Trunkloads of information, amazing stories and extraordinary personalities’ – Christopher Matthew * Daily Mail *‘The amount of ground covered is truly impressive…it’s hard to imagine a better rough guide to science’ – John Waller * Guardian *

Bill Bryson’s bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island, which in a national poll was voted the book that best represents Britain. Another travel book, A Walk in the Woods, has become a major film starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson. His new number one Sunday Times bestseller is The Road to Little Dribbling- More Notes from a Small Island.

His acclaimed book on the history of science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize as well as the Descartes Prize, the European Union’s highest literary award. He has written books on language, on Shakespeare, on history, and on his own childhood in the hilarious memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His last critically lauded bestsellers were At Home- a Short History of Private Life, and One Summer- America 1927

Bill Bryson was born in the American Midwest, and now lives in the UK. A former Chancellor of Durham University, he was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England for five years, and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society.

Bill Bryson was born in 1951 in Des Moines, Iowa, and grew up there, but spent most of his adult life in Britain. He worked for the Bournemouth Evening Echo, Financial Weekly and The Times, and was one of the founding journalists on the Independent. His books include Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words (revised edition, 2001), both published by Penguin, and the travel books The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Big Country and Down Under. He now lives in the United States with his wife and four children.