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Your Learning Zone - A Really Short History of Nearly Everything
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List Price:
Our Price: $29.95
Your Save: $ ( % )
Availability:
Manufacturer: Doubleday Canada
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Average Customer Rating:  
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Binding: Hardcover
EAN: 9780385666862
Format: Import
ISBN: 0385666861
Label: Doubleday Canada
Manufacturer: Doubleday Canada
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 176
Publication Date: 2008-10-28
Publisher: Doubleday Canada
Reading Level: Ages 9-12
Release Date: 2008-10-28
Studio: Doubleday Canada
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Spotlight customer reviews:
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Customer Rating:
Summary: Well almost everything
Comment: This book presented an account of history of science in 18th, 19th and 20th century. It made science interesting with stories of scientists and their rivalry. Hmmm almost like a soap opera.
The book also brings out the complexity of life and tries to define the same through simplicity of atoms. It almost succeeded in explaining origin of life. Its a great book.
Now, what got left out. It concentrated too much on western scientists of 18th to 20th century. It does not give any space to ancient scientists who built the foundation of western science. Well, that's why its "nearly" everything.
The last word...go for it... its good.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Must Read for Everyone
Comment: I purchased "A Short History of Nearly Everything" because of the glowing report of two friends who had read the book. This is a delightfully put together account of "nearly everything". If you are looking to know more about lots of things, this is your book.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A tour through history
Comment: Fabulous, well written book that covers a wide variety of little known or understood topics. Bryson meanders through some of the most interesting parts of our history with his special gifts of quirky insights and stylish prose. This is the book that will have you saying "Wow, I didn't know that. That's really interesting!"
Customer Rating:
Summary: A biography of the universe
Comment: The most amazing thing about this book is that it manages to live up to its title! Bryson covers a whopping amount of material in just under 600 pages - discussing everything from the expanse of the universe to the confines of a single cell. And he does a more than admirable job. Scientific technicalities are presented in a highly readable manner through the smart use of analogies. His chapter on the solar system, for example, left me with an infinitely more vivid picture of the make-up of our planetary neighbourhood than a dozen other science textbooks would have. Full credit to Bryson as well for writing with a boldness and authority that belies the author's background as a non-scientist.
Many reviews have labelled the book as "a rough guide to science". The book offers so much more. It is really a biography of the universe - a an elegant blend of scientific fact, history and lovely anecdotes that makes everything come to life. Nearly everything at least.
Customer Rating:
Summary: 2000 Shock
Comment: This might very well be the 2000 version of Future Shock. If you care it is not hard to follow.
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Editorial Reviews:
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Bill Bryson’s own fascination with science began with a battered old school book he had when he was about ten or eleven years old. It had an illustration that captivated him–a diagram showing Earth’s interior as it would look if you cut into it with a large knife and removed about a quarter of its bulk. The idea of lots of startled cars and people falling off the edge of that sudden cliff (and 4,000 miles is a pretty long way to fall) was what grabbed him in the beginning, but gradually his attention turned to what the picture was trying to teach him: namely that Earth’s interior is made up of several different layers of materials, and at the very centre is a glowing sphere of iron and nickel,
as hot as the Sun’s surface, according to the caption. And he very clearly remembers thinking: “How do they know that?”
Bill’s storytelling skill makes the “How?” and, just as importantly, the “Who?” of scientific discovery entertaining and accessible for all ages. He covers the wonder and mystery of time and space, the frequently bizarre and often obsessive scientists and the methods they used, and the mind-boggling fact that, somehow, the universe exists and against all odds, life came to be on this wondrous planet we call home.
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