God, I hope I succeed in getting my mom to read Bill Bryson

Cafe Society
1

Mom is a prolific reader, but damn, her interests are so narrow. She reads historical non-fiction - 50% revolutionary America, 40% Tudor England, 10% Rome. All fun topics, but jeez. She has an entire bookshelf just full of this stuff. There’s only so many takes on a Benjamin Franklin biography.

So she bought a Nook today. I had to walk her through, over the phone, setting it up. Then I casually ask - “So, you got a book to try it out?” No she says. She’s at the B&N store. She needs something new to read.

I sense my one and only chance. I’m trembling, because this is a chance to get her to read something new. And I owe her one, because she got me watching Mad Men and Breaking Bad. I almost blow it.

“Read David Sedaris! He’s hilarious! He’s gay, just like [brother], but he’s clever and funny!”

“I dunno…”

“NO! WAIT! FORGET THAT! (mumbles to self - ‘she’s a bit too old and Catholic to get Sedaris’) READ BILL BRYSON! ANYTHING! IT’S ALL GOLD!”

“Um…I see “A Short History of Nearly Everything”…is that good?”

“YES! YES, OH GOD YES! IT’S GOLD! IT’S BETTER THAN GOLD, IT’S PLATINUM! WAIT!..(realizes the first chunk of book is mostly science, which is greek to mom)NOOOO! SEARCH FOR ‘AT HOME’!”

“Hmmm…that looks kind of interesting. But hold on. This user review gave it one star.”

“THAT PERSON IS AN IDIOT GOD DAMN THEM! READ IT! READ IT NOW!”

“…”

“…”

“…OK, I guess I’ll give it a try. It’s only like nine dollars.”

so here’s hoping mom enjoys it. I thought it was a very fun read. And I need to get her reading something else.

2

My mom (and intelligent, funny woman) reads romance novels almost exclusively. Unlike a huge percentage of the population of the world, she READS. I think you may have missed the important point here.

3

A side note—Mr. Bryson, while a very good, entertaining writer, isn’t much of a historian and many of his “facts” just aren’t. Period.

4

Any recommendation for A Short History of Nearly Everything should be qualified by pointing out that it is only tangentially related to any actual science. His A Walk In The Woods is similarly uninformative about the actual Appalachian Trail, no surprise as the ill-prepared Bryson and his companion are clearly novices to any camping or backpacking, and his research seems to have consisted largely of reading James Fenimore Cooper novels. I personally find Bryson to be the poor combination of egregiously prolix and lacking in factual content. The former can be enjoyable when the words form a literary structure that delves into deeper themes, as with David Foster Wallace, and latter isn’t necessarily a problem in brevity like Steinbeck’s Travels With Charley, but the combination together makes for tedious reading for someone who does not enjoy Bryson’s casual wordplay and characturization.

I point this out because I often have people trying to foist their fiction tastes upon me after discovering that I read regularly, and forces me to deflect their favorite bestseller author of vampire novels or formulaic chick-lit (I think I can honestly say that having read one Jodi Piccoult or Ian McEwan novel I’ve read them all, at least in spirit if not form), even though my fiction reading largely consists of 19th Century Russian novels, pulp noir, and vintage spy fiction, with most of my reading list being non-fiction history or technical literature.

Let your mother read what she enjoys. If you want to encourage her to read something you think she might like, offer it as a gift, but you don’t need to “get her reading something else.”

Stranger

5

I’ve got this webpage that lists some errors in the text. None of them are fatal. I’m curious, what are you considering “tangentially related to any science”?

6

/edit eh, too mean

7

He doesn’t do a good job of fact checking. His “Walk in the Woods” is littered with problems that make it clear that a bunch of what he wrote is made up. It’s entertaining, but there are more accurate books out there if that’s what you are looking for.

8

**GameHat **- what **Stranger **is referring to is the fact that Bryson is often derided by scientists. With “explainers” like Bryson, purists either appreciate their attempt (e.g., many astronomers respect Carl Sagan and Neil Degrasse Tyson in their attempts to explain the Cosmos to the masses), or get very frustrated because the Explainer appears to mis-state or mis-represent the science while in service to Explaining. Bryson is very much one of those.

Having said that, your point is clear: you want your mom to be aware that there is really interesting Big Questions out there worth learning and thinking about. Bryson’s book moves along and surfaces a lot of interesting topics, so if she reads it, your mom’s interest could get piqued - in which case, come back hear and ask the Scientist Dopers what books they’d recommend :wink:

9

You’re lumping Jodi Picoult with Ian McEwan? One of those things is not like the other. And for the record, could you point me to McEwan’s vampire/chick-lit novels? I’m all over that.

10

Several of the errors listed on that page are pretty egregious, and more offensively, readily fact checked, but they represent only a tiny fraction of the mistruths, folklore, and out of context claims. I few years ago I borrowed the book from the library with the intent of documenting all of the errors I could find in it; two hours later I was only three chapters in and had eight pages of notes on the errors. I could literally expand a discussion of the errors in A Short History of Nearly Everything into a book three times the length of the source material. Many of his errors aren’t just minor numerical errors or typos, either; they are gross conceptual errors or glossing over critical theories, particularly in his chapters on life and evolution. In general, Bryson is just spouting a bunch of poorly-research factoids, many of which are patently untrue, without any sense for the overarching structure of scientific knowledge of the natural world.

No, I’m saying that both authors return to their respective themes, manner of conceiving and portraying characters, et cetera, such that their books all kind of meld into one another at a distance. This isn’t a criticism per se (I read Chandler novels, and he never strays far from his plot in either style or content); they are clearly superior to the mean in their craft, and if you enjoy the sort of writing that each of them does then I’m sure each story is distinct in your particulars. However, if you’re not into emotionally overwraught weepies (Picoult) or deep introspection into obsession and personal betrayal (McEwan), they are not authors to be enjoyed regardless of their particular craft, and reading more of their respective oeuvres isn’t going to change one’s opinion. When someone tells me, “I hated Catch-22!” I don’t try to foist God Knows or Something Happened on them; Heller clearly isn’t their thing.

Stranger

11

Thank you. Whenever I find someone has read this book, I inevitably have to disabuse him or her of the notion that (the EPR paradox shows that) you can send information faster than the speed of light by using The Awesomeness of Quantum Mechanics. ARGH.