A rare DNF for the Neilos Reading Machine. Made it to page 92 and tapped out, just couldn’t keep my eyes open. This is a good book, and I feel it is worthy of a review despite my not being able to get through it.

Bill Bryson is a bestselling travel author who, back in the early 2000s, decided to write a book about the history of our planet from the big bang to the rise of modern humans and A Short History was the result. It was published to great critical acclaim in 2003 and quickly became a bestseller worldwide. As the books critic at The Times (UK) wrote, “This most enjoyable of books is a travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide.” Well, sure, but a travelogue and a sweeping scientific history are two different things. And in my opinion they should be kept separate.

Bryson did a phenomenal job of researching, interviewing scientists and poring over a vast amount of research materials. So there is no doubt about his efforts here and I applaud the effort and discipline involved. Where is the however pivot? Right….here: However, everything about this book, I disliked. Every paragraph that stated a fact or introduced a character had to be accompanied by a humorous and amusing anecdote. This man studied at Oxford and wore an academic gown while digging fossils, or this plucky lab assistant would strike out on his own and finally achieve the results that all the haughty scientists missed. For many of the readers that made this book a bestseller this would be a feature, but for me it was a bug.

There was so much fluff with the facts that I can’t remember any of either. Names everywhere, Cuvier, Mandell, Halley, each one with a pointless digression attached, and the end result is that I have no idea as I type this who did what, when, or even if it matters. Scientific rivalries make for boring copy as they say in the news business. Or in the author’s opinion, great and juicy stuff right here.

Science is exciting to think about but is very boring to actually talk, write, or read about, and that is how it should be. Men and women in white coats working in labs, doing research are the only thing standing between us and the world of pseudoscience. But they’re not zany characters in an 80s sitcom, and as much as Bryson wants to paint them as such it’s just not worth slogging through 500 plus pages to find out more cocktail party material.

Conclusion is like I said above, this is well researched amd well written but I couldn’t get into it, couldn’t get anything useful out of it, and could not finish it. Maybe it’s me. Maybe I’m just not the target audience, you can read it and decide for yourself. Bryson is a good writer and a good man and his books are good, just not this one.

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