Bill Bryson is best known for his travel books and books on English. His latest, *A Short History of Nearly Everything, is a combination science overview and history of science, and is written with his usual wit and touches of his breezy humor.
He does a good job of explaining difficult concepts like superstring theory without causing your eyes to roll back into your head, and puts scientific discoveries into the context of the times and the personalities involved. And he sprinkles in loads of anecdotes and fun factoids (e.g., the Pacific Ocean is a foot and a half higher on its western edge than on its eastern edge, due to forces from the earth's eastward rotation) to lighten the writing.
At 500 pages, it's not really a short book, except when considering what it's covering, and is not as conversationally light as his travel books. But it's good at catching you up on what you should have learned in your various science courses, and what's happened in those fields since you took those courses (a longer time for some of us, of course).
And you may just decide to stay away from Yellowstone.
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