In a Sunburned Country
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4.3 • 270 Ratings
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out. This time in Australia.
His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods. In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place: Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet. The result is a deliciously funny, fact-filled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.
Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path. Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book.
Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
With the Olympics approaching, books on Australia abound. Still, Bryson's lively take is a welcome recess from packaged, staid guides. The author of A Walk in the Woods draws readers in campfire-style, relating wacky anecdotes and random facts gathered on multiple trips down under, all the while lightening the statistics with infusions of whimsical humor. Arranged loosely by region, the book bounces between Canberra and Melbourne, the Outback and the Gold Coast, showing Bryson alone and with partners in tow. His unrelenting insistence that Australia is the most dangerous place on earth ("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 irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback") spins off dozens of tales involving jellyfish, spiders and the world's 10 most poisonous snakes. Pitfalls aside, Bryson revels in the beauty of this country, home to ravishing beaches and countless unique species ("80% of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, lives nowhere else"). He glorifies the country, alternating between awe, reverence and fear, and he expresses these sentiments with frankness and candor, via truly funny prose and a conversational pace that is at once unhurried and captivating. Peppered with seemingly irrelevant (albeit amusing) yarns, this work is a delight to read, whether or not a trip to the continent is planned. First serial to Outside magazine; BOMC selection.
Customer Reviews
Makes me want to just get out and go.
Bill Bryson writes with so much vigor and enthusiasm. It's as if you were there with him on all his adventures. I love the correlation of his trip little known facts that he throws in there. Makes you want to do your o we n research. If you love adventure and have a love foe the jabs down under I definitely recommend this read.
Loved it beginning to end!
I’m sad that I’ve finished this book as it felt like I just had the most entertaining and interesting adventure across Australia. I could not recommend this any more highly. Go ahead and read it now.
This book is required reading if you:
A. Are going to Australia
B. Are thinking about going to Australia
C. Like traveling
D. Like learning about other places and people
E. Like humour
F. Have been to Australia
This is no dry travelogue- Bryson is tuned in to the foibles of humanity, and conveys his delightful stories with wonder and joy.