Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Teaser Tuesday: A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson

 
Teaser Tuesdays is a weekly bookish meme, hosted by MizB of Should Be Reading. Anyone can play along! Just do the following:
  • Grab your current read
  • Open to a random page
  • Share two (2) “teaser” sentences from somewhere on that page
  • BE CAREFUL NOT TO INCLUDE SPOILERS! (make sure that what you share doesn’t give too much away! You don’t want to ruin the book for others!)
  • Share the title and author, too, so that other TT participants can add the book to their TBR Lists if they like your teasers!

Bill Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything will be closest to hand for a while. I am trying to read a chapter a day of this nonfiction book. 

America, Buffon wrote in his vast and much-esteemed Histoire Naturelle, was a land where the water was stagnant, the soil unproductive, and the animals without size or vigor, their constitutions weakened by the "noxious vapors" that rose from its rotting swamps and sunless forests. In such an environment even the native Indians lacked virility. "They have no beard or body hair," Buffon sagely confided, "and no ardor for the female." Their reproductive organs were "small and feeble." 
I am enjoying learning about how scientific ideas came about and how they changed over time. 

22 comments:

  1. Ew, does not sound inviting. Hope you are enjoying the book.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sounds thought provoking!

    Thanks for stopping by my Teaser Tuesday :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting teaser. It really shows how differently people use to think.

    Here's mine.

    ReplyDelete
  4. This kind of book is really fascinating to me. Thanks for the teaser...it totally interests me.

    ReplyDelete
  5. My younger daughter loves Bryson. I'll have to see if she has read this one.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Ok, Bryson is definitely going in my TBR pile now. Thanks for sharing!

    Please check out my teaser over at Restless Reader.


    Enjoy!

    ReplyDelete
  7. That's fascinating! What an interesting book.

    My teaser from The Rule of Nine is here.

    ReplyDelete
  8. For some reason, my link was broken. Let me try again...My teaser from The Rule of Nine is here.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Definitely not my cup of tea, but hope you enjoy it!
    Here's my TT.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Ha! If Buffon thought our country fetid then, what would he think of it now? Good teaser!
    My post: Cut to the Corpse

    ReplyDelete
  11. Ooh, I'd love to read this! That kind of stuff is really interesting. Great teaser!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Buffon seems to be a very opinionated guy.

    Mine is here.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Not for me, but thank you for stopping at my blog earlier!

    ReplyDelete
  14. Sounds like a case of "reproductive organ" envy! Here's my teaser from The Hollow.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I loved this book, I hope you are enjoying it too. Bill Bryson has the funniest, dryest, sense of humour ever. He's a great writer.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  17. Great teaser! I hope you will check out mine for Stephanie Meyer's latest novel The Short Second Life of Bree Tanner! Also, if you check back on my blog this Friday I have huge news about the novels I had been submitting to agents/publishers!

    Sincerely,
    Emma Michaels
    http://EmmaMichaels.Blogspot.com

    ReplyDelete
  18. Great teaser - this book is on my TBR list!

    ReplyDelete
  19. Hope you have fun reading this novel! it sounds very interesting!

    ReplyDelete
  20. That book does sound interesting. Thanks for visiting my blog!

    ReplyDelete
  21. by the way, I am now a follower of yours!

    ReplyDelete

I love getting comments. Let me know what you think.

This blog is now officially declared an Award Free zone! I do appreciate your kindness in thinking of me and I am humbled by your generosity.

Your comments are award enough for me. Comment away!