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Bill Bryson Message Board 6/12/2008 3:39:51 PM
Talk about the novels, new and used books that Bryson has written!

Author Bryson's Book Reviews

A Walk in the Woods (Literature)
Bill Bryson, a middle-aged writer with almost no hiking experience - and in poor shape - hikes the Appalachian Trail with Stephen Katz, an old high school acquaintance, who himself has absolutely no hiking experience, has a seizure disorder, and is, as a bonus, morbidly obese. The two have the usual hiking adventures - horrible trail companions, Trail Magic, unfortunate weather - all related with Bryson's customary humor and light touch. He also throws...
A Walk In The Woods (Biography)
This is about Bryson's journey of discovery along America's Appalacian Trail (AT) that takes him from just outside Atlanta, GA to the mountainous woods of Maine. While he takes some breaks from his hike and does not complete the entire 2,160 mile trek, he gains an appreciation for the journey and the effort needed to walk even small portions of the AT. He has penned a truly funny book detailing the gritty conditions and hardships of life along the tr...
I'm a Stranger Here Myself
Bill Bryson, who spent twenty years in England, married a British woman and raised his children there, returns to America. A series of essays on his observations of cultural differences and American/British everyday life. Very funny and insightful....
In a Sunburned Country (Literature)
Bryson tours Australia by car and train, visiting the larger cities, the outback, the tropical rainforest, and every tourist attraction he can find. He recounts both his travels and information about Australia - its creatures, its history, its people - in his usual humorous, personal style, displaying his great affection for the area in the process. This is perhaps his most charming and amusing book to date....

Bryson booklist

In A Sunburned Country (Biography)
Bill Bryson has authored several well-written travelogues and this book does not disappoint. In a Sunburned Country recounts the numerous trips he has made to Australia over a 4 or 5 year period. His travels take him around the nation to places both well known (Sydney, Perth, Canberra) and obscure (Broome, Cape Leeuwin). With a keen sense of humor he introduces the reader to the lively and enthusiatic people of Australia, their colorful history, uniqu...
Neither Here Nor There (Biography)
Bill Bryson's Neither Here Nor There takes up where A Walk In The Woods leaves off. Althought the setting changes from the American wilderness to the great cities of Western Europe, the reader will find themself caught up in his hillarious travel misadventures. In midlife Mr. Bryson attempts to recreate the travel itenerary of his youth some twenty plus years earlier when he backpacked across Europe with highschool buddy Stephen Katz. The descriptio...
Neither Here Nor There (Literature)
Bill Bryson does Europe in this light, funny book of travel writing. From Hammerfest, in the extreme north of Norway, to Istanbul in Turkey, Bryson explores a continent he's lived near for 15 years, loosely following in the footsteps of his 21-year-old self. The book combines his current observations with memories of his earlier treks through Europe, and does some comparison and discussion of how things have changed. Although Bryson spends an awful lo...
Notes From A Small Country
Notes From A Small Country is Bill Bryson's British swan song, a memoir of his travels written before leaving his beloved Britain to return home to the U.S. in the mid 90's. In 1994, Mr Bryson relives his 1973 landing in Dover that changed his life forever. He tells how he came to England as a backpacking college student, met his wife, fell in love with her and the country, and stayed for the next twenty years. In typical Bryson style he stumbles an...
The Lost Continent (Literature)
Ten years after leaving his native Des Moines, Bill Bryson, now a journalist in London, decides to take a trip home, travel the States, and write about them. Unfortunately thy don't live up to expectations. Bill soon feels like a foreigner in his own land; a land in which he finds no happy little burgs, but an endless strip of sloth, hamburger joints, motels, and gas stations; a land in which he finds the Smithsonian has been destructively tidied up, and...
The Lost Continent (Biography)
In The Lost Continent: Travels In Small Town America, Bill Bryson is back at it with more travel stories. Beginning in Nebraska he travels east crossing the Mississippi and eventually north through New England to the Great Lakes. He returns to Iowa to drop off his mothers car but strikes out on the road several months later and goes north and west before turning south through Arizona and New Mexico and winding up back at his mother home. Carefully a...