Although probably best known for travel writing, Bill Bryson has written a number of science-based nonfiction books, and in 2003 he published a book that pondered the scientific questions and attempted to answer, well, nearly everything. The jump from travel writing to his Short History of Nearly Everything is not such a tremendous leap, however, if you think about it like a travelogue, starting with the beginning of the solar system and ending with life as we know it. In the introduction, Bryson describes how […]
To the reference shelf with you
Some books seem like they were written with you in mind. I look at this cover and read the title, with words like fate, chance, and evolution, and I think this is exactly up my alley. And. . .it kind of is. No matter how hard I tried, though, I simply did not love this book. Jonathan Losos isn’t a bad writer, but I think at times he is too close to his own studies to know where to edit them down for the casual […]