Longer review. This book elevated itself neatly and easily straight into my non-fiction top 10 where it nuzzles comfortably alongside my beloved ‘Cascading Style Sheets – A Definitive Guide’ (thank you again Sam) and Schama’s ‘History of Britian’.
Bill Bryson is an ambling, genial host of ‘nearly everything’ pointing out the obscure, demistifying concepts and explaining the previously interminable. Take this brilliantly cheerful bit of prose.
Every atom you possess has almost certainly passed through several stars and been part of millions of organisms on its way to becoming you. We are each so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms – up to a billion for each of us it has been suggested – probably once belonged to Shakespear. A billion more each came from Bhudda and Ghengis Khan and Beethoven and any other historical figure you care to name.
How can you possibly dislike a book that is full of such happy thoughts?
Bryson takes us through a dazzling amount of subjects that are crucial to our understanding of how we came to be and how life has somehow managed to keep us alive. From Astronomy through Chemistry, Physics, Paleontology and extinction theory as well as a vast array of others, he keeps you interested and keeps you informed.
Go order it right now before you talk yourself out of it, you won’t regret it.
Left Brain Right Brain 
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