Dear Readers,
Here, at the Dodo, we finally finished A Short History of Nearly Everything, by Bill Bryson, a book we have been reading aloud for some time now. I know you can guess that I am prepared to encourage you to read it, too. There is a last chapter, as there usually is, and it begins with the sad demise of the Dodo bird, and I thought that the whole chapter belonged here, could be here, for you to read. I loved the whole book, but the last chapter, well, it is deeply affecting.
So, why isn't the last chapter here? Because, as is often the case, what you really want to do in life, is to be pointed off into the woods on your own. The last chapter must come at the end, and so you must read the other 29 yourself; although, it occurred to me to offer just one word from the book, each day, consecutively, and in, oh, say 406 years or so, you would be reading the last word.
But, let's do this instead- here is the first sentence:
No matter how hard you try you will never be able to grasp just how tiny, how spatially unassuming, is a proton.
And, here, is the last.
And that, almost certainly, will require a good deal more than lucky breaks.
So, get going- run to the library, or if you cannot bear to remove your slippers and skip along the cold floor towards your street shoes, visit Bill Bryson's website, and get sent to a point of online purchase.
PS
Wondering, you busiest of sticklers, just why you should read this book? Can you bear to leave the package unopened? Just lying there, with the ribbon and pretty paper? Come on, join the banquet! There's a place right there, next to me. This book is an owner's manual, an operator's handbook for life as we know it- you want to read it, really- it will fascinate and astound you, you won't know how you ever lived without it.
