A Short History of Nearly Everything — Bill Bryson

I’ve always been fascinated by the origin of humankind. How did we go from cavemen trying to figure out fire to being able to fly huge airplanes through the sky? I’m deeply interested in the many steps that led not only to our present day progress but also to our very existence in the first place. This was my first book by Bill Bryson and I went in with high expectations based on his track record.

But then I read through the first few chapters focused on the big bang and the origins of the universe and decided to take a break. I’ll admit that it didn’t meet my expectations at first because I was focused on a very specific part in the universe’s timeline. Not being one to give up and having run out of books in my backlog I gave it another chance. And I’m glad I did.

It’s such an entertaining read and Bill knows how to turn his well researched content into page-turners. I don’t think I’ll remember most (if any) names of the people mentioned but it gave me a really good overview on many topics that relate to my main interest at the moment–how humans evolved over time.

With that being said, the chapter I enjoyed the most was the obviously the one describing what little is known about our many Sapiens ancestors. This led me down a rabbit hole and I’ve found a few promising resources on the topic such as The Ascent of Man, Prehistory, Guns, Germs and Steel and Sapiens which I’m currently reading.

★★★★☆