Essential reading for anyone who has ever looked up at the night sky and felt small—or looked inside themselves and felt curious.
After reading it, you will never look at the ground beneath your feet, the stars above your head, or your own beating heart the same way again. You will understand, perhaps for the first time, that you are made of stardust, that the atoms in your left hand probably came from a different star than the ones in your right, and that for a brief, shining moment, the universe has become conscious of itself. libro una breve historia de casi todo
He also doesn’t shy away from the terrifying: asteroids, supervolcanoes, climate change, and the fact that 99.9% of all species that ever lived are now extinct. We are, he reminds us, living on borrowed time in a cozy corner of a violent universe. A Short History of Nearly Everything is more than a science book. It is a user’s manual for existence . It won the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize and has sold over two million copies for a reason: it gives you back the gift of awe. Essential reading for anyone who has ever looked
But the real genius of the book is what happens next. Bryson quickly shifts from what we know to how we know it. He devotes long, hilarious chapters to the eccentric, obsessive, and often forgotten scientists who figured it all out. He also doesn’t shy away from the terrifying: