I need to go back and re-read this book. It was very interesting and I enjoy Mr. Bryson’s literary style. His other books are just as well-written and entertaining, notably One Summer: America 1927, A Walk in the Woods, In a Sunburned Country, and At Home.

1. “We are so atomically numerous and so vigorously recycled at death that a significant number of our atoms—up to a billion for each of us, it has been suggested, probably once belonged to Shakespeare.”
2. Also, the Earth and universe are constantly changing “so it is only the brevity of lifetimes that keeps us from appreciating the changes. One of the most major reasons humans have evolved the way we have because we are inclined to feel that life must have a point. We have plans and aspirations and desires. We want to take constant advantage of all the intoxicating existence we’ve been endowed with.”
3. Finally, one last point: “one extremely pertinent fact about life on earth is that life goes extinct. For all the trouble we take to assemble and preserve ourselves (not just people but all life) species crumble and die remarkably routinely.

A Short History of Nearly Everything