Englischsprachige Literatur

Bryson Bill

A Short History of Nearly Everything      read by the author  5CDs

Corgi Audio Books, London 2003

Galbraith3

If this reader here had had a science teacher, who had explained his subject like Bryson does, she would probably have become a scientist, favourably a geologist, although Bryson points out, that whenever a geologist made an important discovery, his findings were neglected by the more renowned species of physicists and the like.
Bryson is a great story-teller, a fact everyone by now is familiar with. But here you actually hear him telling his stories and his amiable voice makes listening a pure pleasure. Whenever some scientific revolution becomes too complicated for the listener, Bryson shows understanding and explains in a truly basic, often slightly humourous way.
But he never makes fun of any of the scientists he introduces, even if they at their time were thought to be weird or outright crazy. And this is what strikes the listener as the real surprise in this “Short History of nearly everything”: that it takes an independent mind and ability to suffer neglect and hostility to be a real genius.
You can hear this story again and again, discovering new wonders every time. And you start reading the newspaper with an eye for those short news, that probably in due time will change our knowledge about the earth and our universe.