Bill Bryson

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BOOKS BY THIS AUTHOR


Title: A Short History Of Nearly Everything: Description:
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller: but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to find out everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. Bryson's style is witty, engaging and makes even the hardest topics understandable.

Title: Notes From A Small Island: Description:
Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate: "I had recently read that 3.7 million Americans according to a Gallup poll, believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me." That comic tone enlivens this account of Bryson's farewell walking tour of the countryside of "the green and kindly island that had for two decades been my home."

Title: Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America: Description:
Bill Bryson The Lost Continent Travels in Small Town America:"I came from Des Moines. Somebody had to...and as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the films of his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Dead Squaw, Coma, Doldrum." This book has quite a bit of wear but is still a thoroughly enjoyable read.

Title: Neither Here Nor There: Travels In Europe: Description:
Bryson takes his backpack and his usual good humour and heads for Europe,from Hammerfest in the far north to Istanbul,to retrace his student journeys of twenty years earlier.

Title: A Walk In The Woods: Description:
Bill Bryson has made a living out of travelling and then writing about it. In The Lost Continent he re-created the road trips of his childhood; in Neither Here nor There he retraced the route he followed as a young backpacker traversing Europe. When this American transplant to Britain decided to return home, he made a farewell walking tour of the British countryside and produced Notes from a Small Island. Once back on American soil and safely settled in New Hampshire, Bryson once again hears the siren call of the open road--only this time it's a trail. The Appalachian Trail, to be exact. In A Walk in the Woods Bill Bryson tackles what is, for him, an entirely new subject: the American wilderness. Accompanied only by his old college friend Stephen Katz, Bryson starts out one March morning in north Georgia, intending to walk the entire 2,100 miles to the trail's end atop Maine's Mount Katahdin. If nothing else, A Walk in the Woods is proof positive that the journey is the destination. As Bryson and Katz haul their out-of-shape, middle-aged bodies over hill and dale, the reader is treated to both a very funny personal memoir and a delightful chronicle of the trail, the people who created it, and the places it passes through. Whether you plan to make a trip like this one yourself one day or only care to read about it, A Walk in the Woods is a great way to spend an afternoon. --Alix Wilber

Title: Down Under: Description:
As his many British fans already know, bearded Yankee butterball Bill Bryson specialises in going to countries we think we know well, only to return with travelogues that are surprisingly cynical and yet shockingly affectionate. It's a unique style, possibly best suited to the world's weirder destinations. It's helpful here: Bryson's latest subject is that oddest of continents, Australia. For a start, there's the oddly nasty fauna and flora. Barely a page of Down Under is without its lovingly detailed list of lethal antipodean critters: sociopathic jellyfish, homicidal crocs, toilet-dwelling death-spiders, murderous shrubs (yes, shrubs). Bryson's absorbing and informative portrait is of a terrain so intractably vast, a land so climatically extreme, it seems expressly designed to daunt and torment humankind. This very user-unfriendliness throws up another Aussie paradox. If the country is so hostile how come the natives are so laid back, so relaxed? As Bryson shuffles from state to state, he seeks the key to the uniquely cool Australian character and finds it in Australia's tragicomic past, her genetic seeding of convicts, explorers, gold diggers, outlaws. This is a country of lads and mates, of boozy gamblers--nowadays mellowed by sunshine and sporting success. Down Under is a fine book. So it may not be quite as deliciously malicious as Bryson's The Lost Continent, nor as laugh-out-loud funny as Neither Here Nor There. But so what? A Bill Bryson on cruise control is better than most travel writers on turbodrive. --Sean Thomas

Title: Notes From A Big Country: Description:
Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the UnitedStates", every year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds,mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000 bed, mattress orpillow injuries a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, four Americans will somehow manage tobe wounded by their bedding. Fans of Bill Bryson will know by now that this isthe kind of completely useless information that gets him excited. In fact, you are unlikely to read anyone else who derivesquite so much pleasure from meaningless statistics. If those statistics are about the USA (Bryson's homeland) or his adoptedEngland--or even better, comparing one to the other--then he is in heaven. And it is not only the uselessness of theinformation that interests him, but also the fact that Americans spend millions of dollars and hours each yearcollecting such data together. Though not a match for his earlier success of Notesfrom a Small Island, Notes from a Big Country takes a good second place. It collects together more than 18 monthsworth of Mail on Sunday columns which Bryson wrote between October 1996 and May 1998 after he and his English wife andchildren returned to the US and settled in New England. The only thing that outshines his amazement--and sometimes,outright dismay--at the way American society has changed while he's been away, is his English-born family's instantembracing of transatlantic culture. A word of warning: reading Bill Bryson is not aspectator sport...you are invited-- in fact, compelled--to marvel at how the nation that "has the largest economy, the mostcomfortably off people, the best research facilities, many of the finest universities and think-tanks, and more NobelPrize winners than the rest of the world put together" could be the same nation where "13 per cent of women cannot say whether they wear their tights under their knickers or over them. That's something like 12 million women walkingaround in a state of chronic foundation garment uncertainty." This is Bryson at his best, and though not every column inchhits the heady heights of underwear distribution, there are enough laugh-out-loud moments to keep you satisfied. Detractors of Bryson's work complain all his booksare the same, yet dedicated followers cite that very uniformity of style and subject as the reason they return, book after book. Anyone disappointed by A Walk in the Woods (Bryson's account of hiking the Appalachian Trail and not his best book) will have their faith restored by Notes from a Big Country--here Bryson returns to his favourite subject and the simple, journalistic prose that makes his wacky facts and observations instantly accessible. Bryson does not pretend to deliver an intellectual treatise on the state of mankind; instead he offers one man's take on how humanity lurches from one day to another--ironically through the kinds of details he mocks others for collecting--Lucie Naylor

Title: Made In America: Description:
Bill Bryson's "Informal History of the English Language in the United States" is, in a word, fascinating. After reading this tour de force, it's clear that a nation's language speaks volumes about its true character: you are what you speak. Bryson traces America's history through the language of the time, then goes on to discuss words culled from everyday activities: immigration, eating, shopping, advertising, going to the movies, and others. Made in America will supply you with interesting facts and cocktail chatter for a year or more. Did you know, for example, that Teddy Roosevelt's "speak softly and carry a big stick" credo has its roots in a West African proverb? Or that actor Walter Matthau's given name is Walter Mattaschanskayasky? Or that the supposedly frigid Puritans--who called themselves "Saints," by the way--had something called a pre-contract, which was a license for premarital sex? Made in America is an excellent discussion of American English, but what makes the book such a treasure is that it offers much, much more.

Title: Neither Here Nor There: Travels In Europe: Description:
Bill Bryson's first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unaminously acclaimed as one of the funniest books for years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before.

Title: The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America: Description:
Bill Bryson's first travel book - And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn't hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England he returned to the land of his youth, and drove alomst 14000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of smiling village where the films of his youth were set. Instead he drove through a series of horrific burgs which he renamed Smellville, Fartville, Coleslaw, Dead Squaw, Coma, Doldrum.

Title: A Short History Of Nearly Everything: Description:
What on earth is Bill Bryson doing writing a book of popular science--A Short History of Almost Everything? Largely, it appears, because this inquisitive, much-travelled writer realised, while flying over the Pacific, that he was entirely ignorant of the processes that created, populated and continue to maintain the vast body of water beneath him. In fact, it dawned on him that "I didn't know the first thing about the only planet I was ever going to live on". The questions multiplied: What is a quark? How can anybody know how much the Earth weighs? How can astrophysicists (or whoever) claim to describe what happened in the first gazillionth of a nanosecond after the Big Bang? Why can't earthquakes be predicted? What makes evolution more plausible than any other theory? In the end, all these boiled down to a single question--how do scientists do science? To this subject Bryson devoted three years of his life, reading books and journals and pestering the people who know (or at least argue about it); and we non-scientists should be pretty grateful to him for passing his findings on to us. Broadly, his investigations deal with seven topics, all of enormous interest and significance: the origins of the universe; the gradual historical discovery of the size and age of the earth (and the beginnings of the awesome notion of deep time); relativity and quantum theory; the present and future threats to life and the planet; the origins and history of life (dinosaurs, mass extinctions and all); and the evolution of man. Within each of these, he looks at the history of the subject, its development into a modern discipline and the frameworks of theory that now support it. This is a pretty broad brief (life, the universe and everything, in fact), and it's a mark of Bryson's skill that he is able to carve a clear path through the thickets of theory and controversy that infest all these disciplines, all the while maintaining a cracking pace and a fairly judicious tone without obvious longueurs or signs of haste. Even readers fairly familiar with some or all of these areas o! f discourse are likely to learn from A Short History. If not, they will at least be amused--the tone throughout is agreeable, mingling genuine awe with a mild facetiousness that often rises to wit. One compelling theme that appears again and again is the utter unpredictability of the universe, despite all that we think we know about it. Nervous page-turners may care to omit the sensational chapters on the possible ways in which it all might end in disaster--Bryson enumerates with cheerful relish the kind of event that makes you want to climb under the bedclothes: undetectable asteroid colliding with the earth; superheated magma chamber erupting in your back garden; ebola carrier getting off a plane in London or New York; the HIV virus mutating to prevent its destruction in the mosquito's digestive system. Indeed, the chief theme of this sprightly book is the miraculous unlikeliness, in a universe ruled by randomness, of stability and equilibrium--of which one result is ourselves and the complex, fragile planet we inhabit. --Robin Davidson

Title: A Short History Of Nearly Everything: Description:
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Title: Down Under: Description:
After tales from the USA and Britain, Bill Bryson turns his roving eye to Australia, the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents. It has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way that anywhere else. Yet when Bill Bryson travelled to Australia he promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, the cities safe and clean, the food is excellent, the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. He tries to find out why Aussies are so cool, digging up a past that reveals convicts, explorers, gold diggers and outlaws.

Title: The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America And Neither Here Nor There: Travels In Small Town America: Description:
This volume contains humorous accounts of two journeys, one taken across America, the other a trek across Europe. "The Lost Continent" is an account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town. Instead he finds a continent that is doubly lost: lost to itself because it is blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; and lost to him because he has become a foreigner in his own country. In "Neither Here Nor There", the author journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the European continent, to Istanbul. In doing so he retraces his steps as a student 20 years before, visiting countries including Norway, France and Italy.

Title: Down Under: Description:
After tales from the USA and Britain, Bill Bryson turns his roving eye to Australia, the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents. It has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way that anywhere else. Yet when Bill Bryson travelled to Australia he promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, the cities safe and clean, the food is excellent, the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. He tries to find out why Aussies are so cool, digging up a past that reveals convicts, explorers, gold diggers and outlaws. From the Publisher Bill Bryson at large down under! --This text refers to the Paperback edition. From the Back Cover 'It was as if I had privately discovered life on another planet, or a parallel universe where life was at once recognizably similar but entirely different. I can't tell you how exciting it was. Insofar as I had accumulated my expectations of Australia at all in the intervening years, I had thought of it as a kind of alternative southern California, a place of constant sunshine and the cheerful vapidity of a beach lifestyle, but with a slightly British bent - a sort of Baywatch with cricket...' Of course, what greeted Bill Bryson was something rather different. Australia is a country that exists on a vast scale. It is the world's sixth largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still it teems with life - a large proportion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistable currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. Ignoring such dangers - yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging; their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this. About the Author Bill BrysonBill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family now live in America. He is the bestselling author of The Lost Continent, Mother Tongue, Neither Here Nor There, Made in America, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Big Country and Down Under. Excerpted from Down Under by Bill Bryson. Copyright © 2001. Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Flying into Australia, I realized with a sigh that I hadforgotten again who their Prime Minister is. I amforever doing this with the Australian PM -committing the name to memory, forgetting it(generally more or less instantly), then feeling terriblyguilty. My thinking is that there ought to be one personoutside Australia who knows.But then Australia is such a difficult country to keeptrack of. On my first visit, some years ago, I passed thetime on the long flight from London reading a historyof Australian politics in the twentieth century, whereinI encountered the startling fact that in 1967 the PrimeMinister, Harold Holt, was strolling along a beach inVictoria when he plunged into the surf and vanished.No trace of the poor man was ever seen again. Thisseemed doubly astounding to me - first that Australiacould just lose a Prime Minister (I mean, come on) andsecond that news of this had never reached me.1The fact is, of course, we pay shamefully scantattention to our dear cousins Down Under - though notentirely without reason, I suppose. Australia is, afterall, mostly empty and a long way away. Its population,about 19 million, is small by world standards - Chinagrows by a larger amount each year - and its place inthe world economy is consequently peripheral; as aneconomic entity, it is about the same size as Illinois.From time to time it sends us useful things - opals,merino wool, Errol Flynn, the boomerang - but nothing we can't actually do without. Above all,Australia doesn't misbehave. It is stable and peacefuland good. It doesn't have coups, recklessly overfish,arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocativequantities or throw its weight around in a brash andunseemly manner.But even allowing for all this, our neglect ofAustralian affairs is curious. As you might expect, thisis particularly noticeable when you are resident inAmerica. Just before I set off on this trip I went to mylocal library in New Hampshire and looked upAustralia in the New York Times Index to see howmuch it had engaged attention in my own country inrecent years. I began with the 1997 volume for no otherreason than that it was open on the table. In that year,across the full range of possible interests - politics,sport, travel, the coming Olympics in Sydney, food andwine, the arts, obituaries and so on - the New YorkTimes ran 20 articles that were predominantly on orabout Australian affairs. In the same period, forpurposes of comparison, it found space for 120 articleson Peru, 150 or so on Albania and a similar number onCambodia, more than 300 on each of the Koreas, andwell over 500 on Israel. As a place that attractedAmerican interest Australia ranked about level withBelarus and Burundi. Among the general subjects thatoutstripped it were balloons and balloonists, theChurch of Scientology, dogs (though not dog sledding),and Pamela Harriman, the former ambassador andsocialite who died in February 1997, a calamity thatevidently required recording twenty-two times in theTimes. Put in the crudest terms, Australia was slightlymore important to Americans in 1997 than bananas,but not nearly as important as ice cream… --This text refers to the Paperback edition.

Title: The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid: Description:
Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, 'I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.' In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson's hands, it becomes everyone's story, one that will speak volumes - especially to anyone who has ever been young. From the Inside Flap Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people’s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, ‘I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.’ In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson’s hands, it becomes everyone’s story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young. From the Back Cover DROP IN COPY FROM HARDBACK An abridgement of The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (C) Bill Bryson 2006 Published in hardback by Doubleday Produced and abridged by Stuart Owen (P) Random House Audiobooks 2006 --This text refers to the Audio CD edition. About the Author Bill Bryson:Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to America for a few years but have now returned to the UK. He is the bestselling author of The Lost Continent, Mother Tongue, Neither Here Nor There, Made in America, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Big Country, Down Under and, most recently, A Short History of Nearly Everything. He is also the author of the bestselling African Diary (a charity book for CARE International).

Title: Bill Bryson The Complete Notes: Description:
This work combines two of Bill Bryson's best-loved books and demonstrates his take on life - from either side of the pond. The books, "Notes from a Small Island" and "Notes From a Big Country", went on to become major bestsellers. "The Complete Notes" combines these two popular books into one volume. Written in the form of bite-sized essays, both books are gently humorous as they highlight the idiosyncracies of the USA and Great Britain. From the Publisher An omnibus edition of Bill Bryson’s perennial bestsellers Notes from a Small Island and Notes from a Big CountryAfter nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. back to the States for a while. Bu From the Back Cover After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. back to the States for a while. But before leaving his much-loved Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around old Blighty, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had for so long been his home. The resulting book, Notes from a Small Island, is a eulogy to the country that produced Marmite, George Formby, by-elections, milky tea, place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowels, Gardeners' Question Time and people who say, 'Mustn't grumble.' Britain will never seem the same again. Once ensconced back home in New Hampshire, Bryson couldn't resist the invitation to write a weekly dispatch for the Mail on Sunday's Night & Day magazine. Notes from a Big Country is a collection of eighteen months' worth of his popular columns about that strangest of phenomena - the American way of life. Whether discussing the dazzling efficiency of the garbage disposal unit, the exoticism of having your groceries bagged for you, or the mind-numbing frequency of commercial breaks on American TV, Bill Bryson brings his inimitable brand of bemused wit to bear on the world's richest and craziest country. The Complete Notes combines two of Bill Bryson's best-loved travel books in one volume, It demonstrates his unique take on life - from either side of the pond. About the Author Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to America for a few years but have now returned to the UK. His the bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There,A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. He is also the author of the prize-winning A Short History of Nearly Everything, and his most recent book is The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

Title: The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid: Description:
Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people's hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, 'I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.' In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson's hands, it becomes everyone's story, one that will speak volumes - especially to anyone who has ever been young. From the Inside Flap Some say that the first hint that Bill Bryson was not of Planet Earth came when his mother sent him to school in lime-green Capri pants. Others think it all started with his discovery, at the age of six, of a woollen jersey of rare fineness. Across the moth-holed chest was a golden thunderbolt. It may have looked like an old college football sweater, but young Bryson knew better. It was obviously the Sacred Jersey of Zap, and proved that he had been placed with this innocuous family in the middle of America to fly, become invisible, shoot guns out of people’s hands from a distance, and wear his underpants over his jeans in the manner of Superman. Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, ‘I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.’ In his deeply funny new memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, and the curious world of 1950s America. It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout. This is a book about growing up in a specific time and place. But in Bryson’s hands, it becomes everyone’s story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition. From the Back Cover The No. 1 Bestseller ‘Is this the most cheerful book I’ve ever read?...hilarious…a lovely, happy book’Evening Standard ‘Tender, hilarious and true’ The Times Bill Bryson’s first travel book opened with the immortal line, ‘I come from Des Moines.Somebody had to.’ In this deeply funny new book, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, in the curious world of 1950s America.It was a happy time, when almost everything was good for you, including DDT, cigarettes and nuclear fallout.This is a book about one boy’s growing up.But in Bryson’s hands, it becomes everyone’s story, one that will speak volumes – especially to anyone who has ever been young. ‘Outlandishly and improbably entertaining’New York Times ‘Wittily incisive…like Alan Bennett, Bryson can play the teddy-bear and then delivera sudden, grizzly-style swipe…might tell us as much about the oddities of the American way as a dozen think-tanks’Independent ‘His greatest gift is as a humorist, so it is the snickers, the guffaws and the undignified belly laughs he delivers on almost every page that make it worth buying’Sydney Morning Herald About the Author Bill Bryson’s bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Down Under. His last book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize, and won the Aventis Prize for Science Books and the Descartes Science Communication Prize.

Title: Made In America: Description:
Travel writer Bill Bryson looks at the language of America and explains the history behind it, including the origins of phrases such as "The real McCoy" and the "G-string"; why two humble bicycle repairmen from Ohio succeeded in mastering manned flight when the world's greatest engineers couldn't get a model aircraft off the ground; why the assassination of President Garfield led to the invention of air conditioning; and how a lonesome hamburger stand at the end of Route 66 provided the inspiration for "McDonald's".

Title: Shakespeare: The World As A Stage (eminent Lives): Description:
Bill Bryson has researched what is known about the life of Shakespeare.

Title: Down Under: Description:
As his many British fans already know, bearded Yankee butterball Bill Bryson specialises in going to countries we think we know well, only to return with travelogues that are surprisingly cynical and yet shockingly affectionate. It's a unique style, possibly best suited to the world's weirder destinations. It's helpful here: Bryson's latest subject is that oddest of continents, Australia. For a start, there's the oddly nasty fauna and flora. Barely a page of Down Under is without its lovingly detailed list of lethal antipodean critters: sociopathic jellyfish, homicidal crocs, toilet-dwelling death-spiders, murderous shrubs (yes, shrubs). Bryson's absorbing and informative portrait is of a terrain so intractably vast, a land so climatically extreme, it seems expressly designed to daunt and torment humankind. This very user-unfriendliness throws up another Aussie paradox. If the country is so hostile how come the natives are so laid back, so relaxed? As Bryson shuffles from state to state, he seeks the key to the uniquely cool Australian character and finds it in Australia's tragicomic past, her genetic seeding of convicts, explorers, gold diggers, outlaws. This is a country of lads and mates, of boozy gamblers--nowadays mellowed by sunshine and sporting success. Down Under is a fine book. So it may not be quite as deliciously malicious as Bryson's The Lost Continent, nor as laugh-out-loud funny as Neither Here Nor There. But so what? A Bill Bryson on cruise control is better than most travel writers on turbodrive. --Sean Thomas