Bit Better Book Club 🎉

Weeks 43 and 44: A Short History of Nearly Everything 📜

Books
#1

Welcome to weeks 43 and 44!

Time to read:

A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

Don’t get fooled by the title! This book still requires dedicating some time to finish it on time!

There are lots of history books that try to explain the events from our past. Bill Bryson’s book is one of the most accessible and appealing of them all. “Sapiens” introduced us to the history of mankind and our closest ancestors. This book starts earlier and explains such topics as the size of the universe, the atoms, and the particles.

“A Short History of Nearly Everything” was recommended by Heather Wilde and Derek Sievers. It has won two prizes for scientific books. Let’s see what we can learn from it!

Just 40 pages (or 1 hour and 22 minutes for an audiobook) a day to finish it in 2 weeks :raised_hands:

#2
#3

I’ll join in on this one. Thanks to COVID I was no longer commuting to work this year, and it turns out, my best book-reading time has always been on the train to work.

With work from home, I somehow never found me-time to sit down and read and basically didn’t read any books at all this year. Since there is no end in sight, this situation is unacceptable and I think I need to force myself to carve out a routine to read books at home.

This one sounds awesome, might as well start today :slight_smile:

#4

Welcome back!

I have to say I started it a short while before the official date, but so far it’s amazing! The style is just great, and the information presented there are usually mind-blowing!

#5

I got the first chapter done during lunch. The writing style is very joyful, indeed. We shall see if I learn anything new from this. I have read about the birth of the universe so many times already, one of the earliest I can remember was in Ray Kurzweil’s Homo S@piens. :dizzy_face:

#6

I’m on page 177. This book is pure joy! I can’t wait to copy all my passages into Roam when I’m done.

#7

Yes, we missed you :slight_smile:

How about hosting an online meeting to discuss the book?

#8

This book is sooo looong. I’m only at 53%. Will have to skip the next book, I guess, and continue with this one.

#9

True, it’s long, but I was so hooked I finished it in just a few days!

So, have you learned anything new from it?

#10
#11

Done now! I don’t think I have learned anything new. Which means, that I have some newfound respect for the education system in Germany and the media back in my childhood.

I just found it super enjoyable to read about all these great minds in a nice almost chronological order.

I guess the book can make you question what the fuck you are even doing with your life, compared to these giants.

I also found it interesting that almost all great adventurers/discoverers/thinkers seemed to be from very wealthy families, which makes sense, but also is a real bummer.

#12

If you have tons of money that you got from your parents and your only concern in life is to avoid boredom then it makes perfect sense you want to become an adventurer, a scientist, or a playboy.

The heads of other people have to be at least from time to time occupied by the more mundane matters of getting bread on the table.

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#13

Same as Martin for me as well - I didn’t learn much but it was a good refresher of my school days. The pattern I noticed across the advancements was that you don’t need to be necessarily smart but be willing to do a lot of experiments and observations. Other things that help here are (financial) freedom, dabbling in multiple fields, and serendipity.

1 Like
#14

So just like mostly everything in life :smiley:

1 Like