*a short history of nearly everything, by bill bryson

I just finished this great book by Bill Bryson.  I absolutely loved it.  It was a combination of copious amounts of "fun facts" (I feel sorry for anyone who has to make small talk with me in the next several weeks, all I will do is start with "did you know...?" followed by random Bryson facts about sperm whales or mitochondrial DNA) and a refresher course for every science class I took from elementary school through college.  As a marketing person, I do not encounter science on a daily basis, or think about it actively, well, ever.  So a lot of this material about cells, the solar system, genetics, tectonic movements etc has been lost to me.  There couldn't be a more entertaining, well-written, and at times laugh-out-loud-funny way of revisiting these topics.

The most interesting point to note, and this is how Bryson wraps it all up, is that modern humans "have existed for only about 0.0001 percent of Earth's history."  The book explores all the events that had to transpire (from the creation of the universe down to the migration patterns of homo sapiens) in order for us to get here.  It's amazing.

This is one of the best non-fiction books I've ever read.  Of course, by it's very classification as "non-fiction", this means it took me approximately 400 times longer to read it than an equally engaging novel. Morgan and I were discussing this the other day; it's just that you want to dedicate some uninterrupted time to "concentrate" on this type of book.  This book will give your brain a workout...