Bill Bryson goes back in time to update his science classic
Best-selling writer Bill Bryson has “interrupted” his retirement to update A Short History of Nearly Everything.
The popular science book, which has sold over 2 million copies since its publication in 2003, was well overdue for an update, author Bill Bryson says.
"The whole problem is that the book is all about science, and me trying to understand science and the universe, and everything really that's happened since the Big Bang, but I wrote it over 20 years ago.
"The book was still selling, and people were buying this book that's, you know, 22 years old, and I just thought, this is getting close to fraudulent. So, I really felt like I've got to bring it up to date,” Bryson told RNZ’s Sunday Morning.
A Short History of Nearly Everything - the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century - explains the Earth, the universe and everything in-between.
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US-born Bryson, who now makes the UK his home, said he was nonetheless taking to retirement very well.
"It's the most wonderful condition. I mean, being retired is just bliss.”
One of the joys for him is being able to read for pleasure, he says.
“I got so used to reading because I needed to. And suddenly I felt a little bit adrift. And so, there is that, but it was compensated by the fact that, you know, you don't have all of the nagging emails and people wanting you to do things.
"Once you tell the world you're retired, you drop off the radar pretty quickly. And as long as you're happy to be off the radar, then it's really quite wonderful.”
Bryson famously said in his book One Summer: America, 1927 that the 1950s and 1960s were the best time to be alive, so does he still believe this to be the case?
"More than ever, I think. I really am troubled by my native land and where it's gone. And this division between people on the left and right, I think, has become incurable."
Although he grew up in the "frightening" shadow of the Cold War and the fear of nuclear warfare, they were simpler, better times, he says.
"I think people were much more considerate of each other. You know, in our house, my parents were Democrats. And they really loved Adlai Stevenson, who ran for president in the 1950s. But twice he was beaten by Dwight Eisenhower. But they accepted that.
"And they didn't think less of Dwight Eisenhower. I mean, they knew that he was a good man and a decent human being. And they didn't agree with his politics, but they knew that he was doing the best he could.”
Political opponents are now seen as the enemy, he says.
"Now, if your candidate doesn't win, you treat them as if they're Satan. You demonise them and all their supporters as well.
"Especially in America at the moment. And I just think, how do you get over that? How do you rein back from that? And I just don't see how that's ever going to happen.
"So, you know, I would go back to that simplicity anytime.”
He has enjoyed revisiting the world of science and the brilliant minds that shaped it, he says, even the lesser-known ones like English moss expert Len Ellis.
Bryson went back and revisited him for the updated version of the book, where he was just about to retire from the British Natural History Museum after 50 years.
Ellis showed Bryson the collection, sample after sample of the mosses, all identical to Bryson’s eyes, the scientist had dedicated his life to.
"The one thing I learned from doing the book is that science and progress is not just about those kind of eureka moments that you get from the Albert Einstein's and Isaac Newton's.
"It's also about all the hundreds of thousands of Len Ellises who just add little bits of knowledge to the great total sum of what's known by humans. And that's why we are where we are now."
