Travels in time and space

IF you mention Bill Bryson's name, most people think of wry asides and wide-eyed wanderings around everywhere from Aberdeen to Australia.

But now the hugely successful travel writer has wandered far off his usual track to produce a book which deals with particle physics, geology, cosmology, palaeontology and a host of other ologies.

However, Bryson, 51, reckons his new book, A Short History Of Nearly Everything, might not be such a departure from his usual works as it first appears.

"It's funny," he says, "the publishers had the idea of giving the book the subtitle 'Travels in time and space'. It didn't get done, but I think it's a really good description, and in that sense it is a travel book. I was really going from a position of profound ignorance to one where I was slightly better informed."

With no scientific background himself - "I knew as little as it was possible to know, had never paid any attention to science" - he'd been thinking about the book for some time.

But it was an uneventful plane journey three and a half years ago which was the trigger. He remembers: "They tell you on planes what the air temperature outside is, and it was something like -57C and I thought, I don't know why it gets so cold up here. We're only a few miles above the surface and we're nearer the sun. I just felt really uninformed and that was the moment when I felt this is the time to do this book."

Packed with facts, figures, anecdotes and illustrations, the book looks at everything from the Big Bang to the most recent discoveries. "This is a book about how we went from there being nothing at all, to there being something, and then how a little of that something turned into us, and also what happened in between and some of what happened since," he explains. It's certainly no textbook though. "I wanted the reader to feel entertained."

"If they'd taught me just a little bit of the human dimension of science when I was a student, it might have helped all the real science come alive."

For all the jokes in his best-sellers - including his best known work, Notes From A Small Island - Bryson himself is more serious, although his face regularly crinkles into a huge boyish grin. His American accent has softened after years in the UK and he is endearingly concerned about how his new offering will be received.

"The impression I get is that people are willing to go along with me this time. I'm being asked an awful lot, 'What's your next book?'," he smiles, admitting he still has a travel wish-list covering half the world. "Essentially what I think they're saying is, 'Will you be going back to what we really like the next time?'. People have been very nice but there is this slight feeling that they're indulging you."

A Short History is already at the top of the best-seller lists which should remove some of his lingering doubts. And it proves Bryson's own point - science isn't boring.

"You sometimes feel like you've just discovered a country that nobody's ever been to. I felt the same way with Australia - I'd think, this is fabulous, why has nobody never told me about this? Well, of course I could have known all this stuff if I'd taken an interest in it before, but you know so little about it."

He adds: "Suddenly I understand why somebody would spend a lifetime dating rocks, because there is a real excitement to it."

Although understanding the often complicated details was tough, the "craziness and eccentricities" of the scientists, and their back-stabbing and competitiveness in the fight to crack science's mysteries was fascinating, he says. "I loved knowing that scientists can be really, really brilliant, brainier than all of us in this room put together and at the same time, really foolish.

"Like Isaac Newton. Here's a guy who was almost certainly one of the half dozen smartest people who ever lived. He completely figured out the cosmos and the way things work.

"And at the same time he does the one thing everybody has known not to since ages past, to stare at the sun for as long as you can to see what would happen. I found it slightly comforting. Science is nothing like as dry and selfless as you might think."

But for the homesick travel writer, one of the biggest advantages was being able to work at home. "I had promised my wife for a long time that the next book I did would be a stay-at-home book, where I could go to the library all day and come home for tea."

With four children, 24-year-old David, 23-year-old Felicity, 18-year-old Catherine and 12-year-old Sam - Bryson also had a captive audience for his fascinating facts.

"It's very easy to become very boring about these things. but when you've got kids, they will put you in your place very quickly if they think you are being 'BOR-ing'," he laughs. "They don't hesitate to let you know. 'Dad's talking about bacteria again, Oh God'."

Next on his list is more family time. After eight years in America the Brysons are moving back to the UK this summer, this time to Norfolk, not North Yorkshire.

"When we moved from England to the States, I had to go off almost straight away and work on some projects and I left my wife to do all the unpacking and sorting out. I gave her a solemn vow this time that I would not do that to her again," he says.

The family had always intended to come back, just waiting for the right time in the children's school careers, he adds.

"It's going to be very exciting. We'll get Radio 4 and Gardeners' Question time and all that stuff, and there'll be pubs," he smiles.

With his eldest daughter's wedding in October and his eldest son's first child on the way, Bryson has plenty to look forward to.

And the book made him realise how lucky we are to be here.

"You're lucky to be here as a human being - you could have been an insect or a blade of grass, but of all the things that live you get to be at the top of the heap.