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Origin Story

a Big History of Everything
Oct 03, 2018SkokieStaff_Steven rated this title 4 out of 5 stars
Science or history? While much of my nonfiction reading is either one or the other, I didn’t have to decide between the two while reading David Christian’s “Origin Story: A Big History of Everything.” My library puts the book in the history section, but it fits just as well with the science books. Living things don’t appear in Christian’s narrative until Chapter 4 and biological humans until Chapter 7, about half way through the book which starts with the Big Bang. Christian is a good explainer and an unobtrusive, solid writer rather than a flashy one like Randall Munroe. Since we’re talking history of the universe here, it’s not really necessary to point out that Christian covers a lot of ground. Little in the book will be completely unfamiliar to the educated reader, but Christian’s extremely broad perspective makes his history refreshing and intellectually invigorating.