In a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson
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Book Reviews of In a Sunburned Country
Book Review: "In A Sunburnt Country" - absolutely brilliant!
Summary: 5 Stars
Having never been interested in Australia much (I can't see why anyone would if they didn't know anything about it), I started reading this novel with a certain amount of nationalistic skepticism. Yet, as I read on, I couldn't put the book down. Australia truly is a fascinating place, and Bryson, as usual, does an absolutely tremendous job of painstakingly describing this beautiful country in excruciating detail. I would have never thought there was so much to see there in that vast desert, as Bryson describes. He travels all along the east coast and west coast, not to mention everything in between. In a Sunburnt Country vividly details all the little odds and ends about the land Down Under, from tiny little creatures that were the first species on earth to the magnificence of Ayers Rock, from the nightlife of Sydney to the oddities of people from Queensland. This book also features a ton of history about Australia, all of which is fascinating. The politics, the Aborigines, the environment, including all the crazy stories about all the fatal accidents that happened there. Oh, and by the way, Australia has all of the deadliest creatures in the world, and Bill Bryson gives lots of peculiar information about that too. Overall, it was a wonderful book, and I highly recommend it as a must to all travelers and travel book readers alike.Book Review: Very enjoyable
Summary: 5 Stars
I just finished reading "In a Sunburned Country" a couple of days ago, and I am mailing right it off to a friend of mine to read. My first encounter with Bill Bryson was through "Made In America" (also highly recommended) his everyman's guide to the history of the English language in America. I found Bryson to be intelligent, funny, and down-right readable. I followed up with "Mother Tongue" which wasn't as funny as "Made in America" but equally as informative and a pleasure to read.I then picked up "A Walk in the Woods." I just couldn't get "into" this book. Bryson's style was different from the other books I'd read, and I found it not quite as compelling. A couple of months ago I picked up this book and started reading it. It is similar in tone and style to "A Walk in the Woods," but this time, I found myself intrigued. Maybe it's the subject matter, or maybe I just wasn't in the mood for this type of book when I tried to read "A Walk in the Woods."
Regardless, I highly recommend "In a Sunburned Country." If you like to travel, or just armchair travel, if you find new cultures and countries fascinating, if you like to learn little-known and quirky facts about people and places, I'm sure you will enjoy this book, no worries.
Book Review: One of my favorite books of all time!
Summary: 5 Stars
I have to admit it, I'm a huge Bill Bryson fan. I've read and enjoyed all his books, some more some less but even his "weaker" books were well worth reading.
I've read this book in its UK form as "Down Under" and have to say it is my favorite of Bryson's books! It is funny, thought provoking, intelligent, and interesting all the way through. Bryson has a way of telling historical fact and making it interesting and here it shines.
A little tale of how I discovered this book: I was traveling through New Zealand and Australia for about a year. During my travels, backpackers (as low budget travelers are known) usually trade books between them. You pick up a book, you read it, you trade it for a different one from another backpacker. And so it goes. However, there was one particular book that many backpackers had in their possession and did not care to trade for any cost, it was indeed "Down Under" which I had to purchase for myself. Considering all the hype and praise fellow backpackers were giving it, I had no choice. It was a fantastic read full of relevant information. Afterwards, I too did not wish to trade it and it's sitting proudly on my bookshelf today, with red sand stains from the Australian Outback - a reminder to where the book was at!
In short, get this book, read it, enjoy it.
Book Review: Typical Bryson
Summary: 5 Stars
Bill Bryson is not so much a travel writer as a teller of shaggy dog stories. He has travelled to Australia a number of times and this is the recounting of adventures that he had on one longer trip where he rented a car and drove huge distances around the country. Each place he visits gives rise to a story. Thus he visits a small pub in the Norther Territory which used to be a stop of air strip in times when planes had shorter ranges than they do now. He gives a description of the "town" and some background and then recounts the exploits that he had staying there. The device he uses is to describe waking up and having a coffee with his travel companion. Both are hung over from a solid night on the booze and they work out what has happened by looking at the items they have in their pockets. As they do so the memories of a rightous and funny night come back.
One of the other great stories in the book are the description of listening to five days cricket commentary when Bryson is completely unaware of the rules of the game. His attempts to work out what is happening from the jargonised language of the broadcast is a classic.
The only slightly strange thing in this book is Bryson's gentleness in talking about Australia. He can be a little more biting but in this book he is rather complementary.
Book Review: Delightful
Summary: 5 Stars
As usual, Bill Bryson is a marvellous writer with a droll sense of humor and a dry wit, who tells a delightful story of his experiences travelling. Also as usual, he conveys the sense of the place he's visiting quite enchantingly while providing a rather large dollop of outside information about the place from his reading; he is quite thorough in his research. This time, his choice of location is Australia, a place that I knew was fascinating even before I began to read his book. Now, I'm aware that I didn't even know the half of it. As in "The Lost Continent", a book of his travels around the continental United States, he details the places that have excellent amenities while still retaining their unique charm, those that have perfectly adequate (possibly even fabulously lavish) amenities, but are totally generic, and those that have (in his experience) lousy amenities. The difference between this book and that is that in Australia, he seems willing to overlook the shortcomings of the places with lesser amenities, because he is so enthralled with the country as a whole. That attitude makes this book far more readable than that one; it's much more fun when the writer seems to be enjoying himself, even in the midst of what could have been unpleasant experiences.