That's the book I've been, and could not afford to stop, reading. It's interesting not only in the sense as conveyed by the book reviews as below, from the Internet, but also in the sense that it poses a challenge of English vocabulary, retrieving the prefixes, word roots and suffixes of celtic, latin, french, normanic....origins. My pleasure of reading is doubled.
Highly recommended!
内容简介
由一个旅游作家来写地球的科学简史，这个企划与过程真是太有趣了！
作 者BillBryson是国内知名的徒步旅游作家，国内出版过他的旅游书《欧洲在发酵》和《一脚踩进小美国》，为何会写下这本书呢？作者在书里说道：「我 在旅行途中时，透过机舱的窗口看到下面旷阔的月光与海景，一个念头闪过，我发现到我虽然经常旅行但是对自己生活在上面的星球所知甚少。」作者用清晰明了、 幽默风趣的笔法，将宇宙大爆炸到人类文明发展进程中所发生的繁多妙趣横生的故事一一收入笔下。惊奇和感叹组成了本书，历历在目的天下万物组成了本书，益于 人们了解大千世界的无穷奥妙，掌握万事万物的发展脉络。
书中回溯了科学史上那些伟大与奇妙的时刻，引用了近年来发现的最新科学史料，几乎每一个被作者描述的事件都奇特而且惊人：宇宙起源于一个要用显微镜才看 得见的奇点；全球气候变暖可能会使北美洲和欧洲北部地区变得更加寒冷；1815年印度尼西亚松巴哇岛坦博拉火山喷发引发的海啸夺走了10万人的生命；美国 黄石国家公园是"世界上最大的活火山"……而那些沉迷于科学的科学家们也是千奇百怪：达尔文居然为蚯蚓弹起了钢琴；牛顿将一根大针眼缝针插进眼窝，为的只 是看看会有什么事情发生；富兰克林不顾生命危险在大雷雨里放风筝；卡文迪许在自己身上做电击强度实验，竟然到了失去知觉的地步；发现第一批陆地动物鱼甲龙 化石的瑞典古生物学家贾维克居然数错了手指、脚趾的数量，还把化石藏了48年不让别人看……
因 此Bill Bryson花了3年的时间，找寻相关的资料与拜访相关的科学家及学者，以科学的角度及散文体例的方式介绍我们所居住的地球。本书虽然厚达544页，但是 涵盖近年来发现的宇宙、生物、地质、物理化学等科普散文知识，这个厚度，才刚刚好呢！本书也获得亚马逊网站2003 年度优秀图书的推荐！
作者简介
一 九五一年出生於美国爱荷华州，毕业於美国德雷克大学。曾任职於伦敦『泰晤士报』与『独立报』，在英国居住长达二十年之久，同时也为『纽约时报』、《君子杂 �I》、《GQ》与《国家地理杂�I》等刊物撰文。他的兴趣很广泛，在语言学方面着有《麻烦词汇字典》(A Dictionary of Troublesome Words)、《母语》(The Mother Tongue)、《美式英语》(Made in America)等书，皆为非学院派的幽默之作，获致很高的评价；在旅游记事方面，着有《别跟山过不去》、《一脚踩进小美国》、《欧洲在发酵》、《哈！小 不列颠》等书。而最新力作《请问这�Y是美国吗？》（I am a Stranger Here Myself）可说是比尔．布莱森在抒写自己的故乡--美国的作品中，最至情至性、最努力经营的一本书，不仅佳评如潮，还被喻为媲美《哈！小不列颠》的佳 作。目前他和英国妻子以及四个小孩居住於美国新罕布夏州的汉诺威市。
英文原版介绍： Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everythingreports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short Historyc locks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of LifeandTrilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights-- Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morrisvs.Gould --that he finds literary gold.
From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everythingreports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short Historyc locks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of LifeandTrilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights-- Cope vs. Marsh, Conway Morrisvs.Gould --that he finds literary gold.
From Publishers Weekly
As the title suggests, bestselling author Bryson (In a Sunburned Country) sets out to put his irrepressible stamp on all things under the sun. As he states at the outset, this is a book about life, the universe and everything, from the Big Bang to the ascendancy of Homo sapiens. "This is a book about how it happened," the author writes. "In particular how we went from there being nothing at all to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and since." What follows is a brick of a volume summarizing moments both great and curious in the history of science, covering already well-trod territory in the fields of cosmology, astronomy, paleontology, geology, chemistry, physics and so on. Bryson relies on some of the best material in the history of science to have come out in recent years. This is great for Bryson fans, who can encounter this material in its barest essence with the bonus of having it served up in Bryson's distinctive voice. But readers in the field will already have studied this information more in-depth in the originals and may find themselves questioning the point of a breakneck tour of the sciences that contributes nothing novel. Nevertheless, to read Bryson is to travel with a memoirist gifted with wry observation and keen insight that shed new light on things we mistake for commonplace. To accompany the author as he travels with the likes of Charles Darwin on the Beagle, Albert Einstein or Isaac Newton is a trip worth taking for most readers.
FromAudioFile
In his first major work in three years, Bryson takes on, well, everything. From the components of the atom to the size of the universe to the age of the Earth, Bryson describes the history behind scientific discovery. Sometimes mystified, often admiring, Bryson regales listeners with the follies and feats in science. It's amazing how much we know and how we found it out. It's astounding, however, how much we have yet to learn. Listeners may have to work a bit harder in this departure from Bryson's usual travel writing. His easy pace and sincere delivery, however, make names, dates, and concepts digestible. It's a pleasure to hear Bryson's voice, like that of an old friend, remind us how incredible existence is.
FromBooklist
Confessing to an aversion to science dating to his 1950s school days, Bryson here writes for those of like mind, perhaps out of guilt about his lack of literacy on the subject. Bryson reports he has been doing penance by reading popular-science literature published in the past decade or two, and buttonholing a few science authors, such as Richard Fortey (Trilobite!Eyewitness to Evolution, 2000). The authors Bryson talks to are invariably enthusiasts who, despite their eminence, never look on his questions as silly but, rather, view them as welcome indicators of interest and curiosity. Making science less intimidating is Bryson's essential selling point as he explores an atom; a cell; light; the age and fate of the earth; the origin of human beings. Bryson's organization is historical and his prose heavy on humanizing anecdotes about the pioneers of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, evolution and paleontology, or cosmology. To those acquainted with the popular-science writing Bryson has digested, his repackaging is a trip down memory lane, but to his fellow science-phobes, Bryson' s tour has the same eye-opening quality to wonder and amazement as his wildly popular travelogues.
Review
"Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing."
―The New York Times
"Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science."
―People
"Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world's biggest story."
―Seattle Times
"Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable."
―Simon Winchester,The Globe and Mail
"All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations."
―
National Post"Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing."
―The New York Times
"Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science."
―People
"Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world's biggest story."
―Seattle Times
"Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable."
―Simon Winchester,The Globe and Mail
"All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations."
―
"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can't help but enjoy his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind."
―Ottawa Citizen
"Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned."
―Winnipeg Free Press
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Review
?Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing.? --The New York Times
?Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science.? --People
?Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world?s biggest story.? --Seattle Times
?Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable.? -- Simon Winchester,The Globe and Mail
?All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations.? --National Post
"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can?t help but enjoy his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind.? --Ottawa Citizen
?Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned.? --Winnipeg Free Press
From the Trade Paperback edition.
Book Description
One of the world's most beloved and bestselling writers takes his ultimate journey -- into the most intriguing and intractable questions that science seeks to answer.
InA Walk in the Woods, Bill Bryson trekked the Appalachian Trail -- well, most of it. InIn A Sunburned Country, he confronted some of the most lethal wildlife Australia has to offer. Now, in his biggest book, he confronts his greatest challenge: to understand -- and, if possible, answer -- the oldest, biggest questions we have posed about the universe and ourselves. Taking as territory everything from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization, Bryson seeks to understand how we got from there being nothing at all to there being us. To that end, he has attached himself to a host of the world's most advanced (and often obsessed) archaeologists, anthropologists, and mathematicians, travelling to their offices, laboratories, and field camps. He has read (or tried to read) their books, pestered them with questions, apprenticed himself to their powerful minds.A Short History of Nearly Everythingis the record of this quest, and it is a sometimes profound, sometimes funny, and always supremely clear and entertaining adventure in the realms of human knowledge, as only Bill Bryson can render it. Science has never been more involving or entertaining.
From the Back Cover
"Stylish [and] stunningly accurate prose. We learn what the material world is like from the smallest quark to the largest galaxy and at all the levels in between . . . brims with strange and amazing facts . . . destined to become a modern classic of science writing." --The New York Times
"Bryson has made a career writing hilarious travelogues, and in many ways his latest is more of the same, except that this time Bryson hikes through the world of science." --People
"Bryson is surprisingly precise, brilliantly eccentric and nicely eloquent . . . a gifted storyteller has dared to retell the world's biggest story." --Seattle Times
"Hefty, highly researched and eminently readable." -- Simon Winchester,The Globe and Mail
"All non-scientists (and probably many specialized scientists, too) can learn a great deal from his lucid and amiable explanations." --National Post
"Bryson is a terrific stylist. You can't help but enjoy his writing, for its cheer and buoyancy, and for the frequent demonstration of his peculiar, engaging turn of mind." --Ottawa Citizen
"Wonderfully readable. It is, in the best sense, learned." --Winnipeg Free Press
From the Trade Paperback edition.
About the Author
Bill Bryson'sbestselling books includeA Walk in the Woods,I'm a Stranger Here Myself,In A Sunburned Country,Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words ,Bill Bryson's African Diary, andA Short History of Nearly Everything.He lives in Norfolk, England, with his wife and children.
没有评论:
发表评论