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.
About the Author
Bill Bryson is the bestselling author of The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods and Notes from a Big Country. He and his family live in America
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Reviews
– Customer review on 22/06/2007
A very, very funny book. I was expecting some arm chair travel book, but what i got was something completely different. He has an amazing ability to paint a picture of his very odd adventures. Being chased by dogs through a suburban park had me in absolute stitches. I would recomend this to anyone, as i would with any of his 'travel' books!
Another great travel journal from Bryson. If this doesn't make you want to visit Australia nothing will. He has a fantastic ability to see quirky traits in people and places everywhere and happily records them for our pleasure. A great read and a great gift. Highly recommended.
It was fantastic as an Australian to read Bill Bryson's experiences of our country. He has such a quirky and clever sense of humour and manages to irreverently portray the state of our nation in the last decade or two. He examines Australia's treatment of Aboriginals and certainly made me reconsider how much I know (vs how much I should know) about this period in the history of Australia. Bill Bryson seems to have an instinctive and intuitive understanding of people he meets and his recollection of the old couple he meets in the Blue Mountains is classic. On the whole, I think the author has a respect for Australians and the land they inhabit and he makes the telling of his experiences in Australia enjoyable by his fantastic retelling of everyday encounters along the way.
I think this book is interesting for both australians and foreigners. Obviously the less you already know about aus the more you will learn from this, but there is a lot that the average aussie is unaware of in this book. Bryson has a very funny and relaxed writing style yet manages to stay very informative, and he does his research well.
Bill Bryson always manages to find really interesting and quirky places in the countries he writes about. I guess that is why he is so popular. I read this book before and during my trip to Australia and got to show off by using my new found facts about the place (obviously not telling them what I was reading!). He does all the travelling around and exploring for you so you can get to find out and enjoy all the good bits!
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– Customer review on 22/06/2007
