Catherine Raynes: Nash Falls and A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0

Nash Falls by David Baldacci  

Walter Nash is a sensitive, intelligent and kindhearted man. He has a wife and a daughter and a very high-level position at Sybaritic Investments, where his innate skills and dogged tenacity have carried him to the top of the pyramid in his business career. Despite never going on grand adventures, and always working too many hours, he has a happy and upscale life with his family. 
 
However, following his estranged Vietnam-veteran father’s funeral, Nash is unexpectedly approached by the FBI in the middle of the night. They have an important request: become their inside man to expose an enterprise that is laundering large sums of money through Sybaritic. At the top of this illegal operation is Victoria Steers, an international criminal mastermind that the FBI has been trying to bring down for years. 
 
Nash has little choice but to accept the FBI’s demands and try to bring Steers and her partners to justice. But when Steers discovers that Nash is working with the FBI, she turns the tables on him in a way he never could have contemplated. And that forces Nash to take the ultimate step both to survive and to take his revenge: He must become the exact opposite of who he has always been. 
 
And even that may not be enough. 

  

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 by Bill Bryson  

Bill Bryson can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 is the result of his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization – how we got from being nothing at all to what we are today. Now fully updated to reflect the many scientific discoveries in the last twenty years since this book was first published, it explains among much else: 

• Why Pluto is no longer a planet 
• How the number of moons in the solar system has more than doubled in 20 years 
• How scientists used advances in genetics to discover previously unknown species of early humans 
• Why we still don't know what most of the universe is made of 
• How the little Higgs boson transformed physics 

This journey through time and space will inform a new generation of readers, young and old, as well as those who read this book on first publication with a new perspective based on what we know now. 

Written in his inimitable style, Bryson makes complex subjects fascinating and accessible to everyone with an interest in the world around them. 

 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Saturday Morning with Jack Team podcast
from News Talks at Me and.

Speaker 2 (00:13):
Our book reviewer Katherine Rains has got her hands on
a copy. She's with us this morning.

Speaker 3 (00:17):
Good morning, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:19):
Yeah, what did you think of Nash Falls? Tell us
about it?

Speaker 3 (00:22):
So it's talks all about this guy called Walden Nash.
He's a real mild man and man, and he has
this high level executive role at a place called Symbaric Investments,
and he's really unaccustomed to violence. That's not part of
his life. He's really living a comfortable life with this
great job, his family, his wealthy life is good. He's
got a lovely wife and daughter, and he seems to

(00:42):
be this very conscientious and caring man, and he works
long hours and he travels a lot, and family is
really important to him. But of course this is a
David Baldoucchi nove. Also things are about to change. And
first his estrange father dies and this brings this massive
flood of emotions and feelings about their relationship and the
great of time and the fact that they didn't make
up with their relationship. But then after the funeral, he's

(01:04):
approached by the FBI who want him to work with
him to bring down his employer, and he finds himself
as part of this COVID investigation into the workings of
his company and the divisions, and everything in his normal
world starts to be really out of control, particularly when
the person at the center of the scheme, it is
investment company, is somehow informed of the leak and the

(01:25):
undercover working with the FBI, and so what began is
kind of a simple surveillance in helping out the FBI
turns into survival mode, and things happen in his personal
life and it's devastating, and then things are revealed about
him online, and life as he knew it just disappears,
and he has to do things and train to do
things that he had never considered before. And it's a

(01:47):
really character driven novel. You see Nash struggling with his
conscience and about revenge and violence and that personal identity
of his and the book's full of suspense and intrigue
that paractually is so good at and that initial mystery
that unravels into this complex web of betrayals and grudges
and conspiracies that happen at the highest level of powers.

(02:08):
But out. She's a real expert in leading you with
clues and reveals and of course the odd read hearing,
and just when you think you've got it all figured out,
something else happens that changes the direction of the story.
And he keeps you hooked, that's for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:21):
Oh so good, Okay, cool. So that's Nash Falls by
David Baldacie. Next up, A Short History of Nearly Everything
two point zero by Bill Bryce and another friend of
the show.

Speaker 3 (02:31):
Yes, and he's a best selling American British author, and
he's known for his really accessible non fiction books, and
he's written about everything about travel, science and language. He
I think in nineteen ninety five he wrote Notes from
a Small Island, which was all about Britain and the people,
and that really raised his profile. And then twenty years
ago now he wrote the Short History of Nearly Everything,

(02:52):
and he decided actually that it was really due for
an update. You know. He says himself that the whole
problem with the book is it's about science and trying
to understand science and everything that's happened since the Big
Bang and civilization was over twenty years ago, and there's
so much that's changed, and I was really amazed at
how much that's changed. And there's everything in there, the planet,

(03:14):
the solar system, the universe, and a history of how
we've come to know as much as we know about
what we do. And it's a book that focuses on science,
but Bryson makes it really entertaining and readable. And one
of the first chapters actually covers off how many moons
have been added in the last twenty years, and it
turns out that one hundred new moons have been discovered.
Some of them are just big rocks, but they orbit

(03:34):
a planet, so therefore it's a definition of a moon.
And then he moves on to topics like sub atomic
particles and continental drift, at atomic structure, and the extension
of the dinosaur, and lots of other things. But he
also talks about the human side of it, like JBS Haldine,
who was responsible for discovering the genes for color blindness,

(03:55):
and an English moths expert, a guy called lenn Alice
from the British National History Museums. Here certainly finds people
that we don't know a lot about, and that human
interest on those scientists really keeps you entertained. And the
book is completely entertaining, and you'll really learn something about
science that you didn't know. And if you've read the
first one, you really need to read the second one
so you can see how much the world's changed, and yeah,

(04:17):
how much you know? How much we more we know?
And twenty two years.

Speaker 2 (04:21):
Yeah, I think I absolutely loved the original Short history
of nearly everything. I even remember like lines from it
and the different characters that Bill Bryson was describing. I
think there was the first time I came across is
it Thomas Midgley, who is the guy who designed Yes,
both CFC's and leaded petrol am I right, course they

(04:44):
samwiged to humankind in the modern era. This poor inventor
was responsible for both of them. He didn't know obviously
inventing them intending to cause harm, but they both was
He ended up doing that. But he has a wonderful
way of just telling stories around science and around history
that really kind of just engage you, right, even if

(05:05):
you don't think you're into history, you don't think you're
into science, he's got a real way of kind of
capturing you with those stories.

Speaker 3 (05:10):
He certainly does, and that narrative way that he tells
that you find yourself, you know, I mean, I don't
know a lot about sub atomic particles, but I know
more now, and yeah, it's just it's it's an intriguing
way that he writes it, and yeah, really interesting.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
I think he's probably also one of the few writers
whom I could quote, like a few modern writers whom
I could quote. Was that the first line of the
Lost Continent is I came from des Moines. Somebody had too. Yeah,
it's just such a good lie. Yeah, immediately you caught anyway,
It's just to be totally clear, is a short history
of nearly everything too? Is that a sequel to the

(05:46):
first one? Or is it more? As things have been updated,
he's kind of revamped the book a little bit.

Speaker 3 (05:52):
Oh it feels really updated. How I've seen him, heard
him talk about things, and he said, you know, he
started to sit down and read it and realized, like
in the first you know, chapter or so, that so
much had changed. So he talks about some of the things,
but yeah, you know, he really talks about how much
it's changed and you know, what's happened, and he had
some kind of other people and more characters into it,

(06:13):
so you don't I don't feel like I'm reading a
repeat of what happened in the first one. Yeah, I
feel like I'm reading quite a new book.

Speaker 2 (06:19):
Yeah, okay, okay, that's really good. He I think we
had him on when he released his Guide to the Body,
and he and I ended up speaking for about nine
minutes about breast milk as you do. So anyway, that
sounds amazing, sounds really good. This both of those books
are a bit of mail. We've had Nash falls already,
but a short history of nearly everything two boy know
it sounds spectacular as well. Thank you, Catherine.

Speaker 1 (06:40):
For more from Saturday Morning with Jack Tame. Listen live
to news Talks i'd Be from nine am Saturday, or
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