A curious beginner

Bill Bryson, a travel writer, realised he knew almost nothing about the planet he lived on. How do scientists know how old the Earth is, or what is inside an atom? He spent about three years reading and talking to experts to find out.

The result is a tour of science told through the people who made the discoveries, many of them odd, stubborn and wonderfully human. He begins by marvelling that each of us exists at all.