Down Under: Travels in a Sunburned Country

It is the driest flattest hottest most desiccated infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life - a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else.Ignoring such dangers - and 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… Review Bryson makes you laugh out loud...Down Under is filled with quirky stories ―Sunday ExpressThe thing that Bryson most loves about Australia - its effortlessly dry direct way of viewing the world - is in fact his own. Theyre a perfect fit ―The New York Times Book ReviewBryson is the perfect travelling companion... when it comes to travels peculiars the man still has no peers ―The TimesBill Bryson is a very talented writer and an enormously funny and perceptive one. He is an artist who needs a big canvas. Australia has provided this. Hes painted a masterpiece in travel literature ―Globe & Mail Toronto About the Author Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines Iowa in 1951. His bestselling books include The Road to Little Dribbling Notes from a Small Island A Walk in the Woods One Summer and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. In a national poll Notes from a Small Island was voted the book that best represents Britain. His acclaimed work of popular science A Short History of Nearly Everything won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize and was the biggest selling non-fiction book of its decade in the UK. His new book The Body: A Guide for Occupants was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and is an international bestseller.Bill Bryson was Chancellor of Durham University 2005-2011. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.