The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir
Bill Bryson has tackled the Appalachian Trail, troublesome words, Captain James Cook, and repatriation. After the entertaining (and just slightly ambitious) Short History of Nearly Everything, he turns...
View ArticleA Short History of Nearly Everything
This learned and amusing work covers the origin of the universe to the human genome. A welcome journey with Bryson in typical wise and witty fashion. Books mentioned in this post
View ArticleShakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)
A well-researched, well-written journey through Shakespeare's England. And who better as your affable guide than Bill Bryson? This slim volume is a perfect stocking stuffer. Books mentioned in this post
View ArticlePowell’s Q&A: Jacquelyn Mitchard
Who's wilder on tour, rock bands or authors? Well, I know plenty of authors who tour like Grand Funk Railroad, with groupies in every city, leather jackets on the expense account, and steak from room...
View ArticleAt Home
There is nothing on this planet that Bryson cannot make fascinating. In his hands, exploring the minutiae of his house becomes an adventure. (Granted, his house is a Victorian vicarage in Norfolk,...
View ArticleNotes from a Small Island
Sometimes laugh-out-loud, sometimes poignant, Bill Bryson takes a trip to the villages of his beloved Britain. Books mentioned in this post
View ArticleAt Home: A Short History of Private Life
Bill Bryson could make paint drying seem utterly fascinating. In his own house, a former parsonage in a tiny village in England, Bryson is perplexed by the attributes (and non-attributes) he finds...
View ArticleThe Art of Travel Writing
Travel writing is a demanding genre. It requires both the toughness to make a hard journey and the sensitivity to record it. They don't often coexist. There are travelers who write, and writers who...
View ArticleWhy the Travel Book?
Promoting a travel book in the United States — even one like mine, on Tibet — is to promote a minority genre. Enter a bookshop in New York or LA, and you'll find travel narratives lurking among guide...
View ArticleOne Summer: America, 1927
Trust Bill Bryson to make the summer of 1927 as immediate and thrilling to the reader as it was to the Americans who lived through it. Written with Bryson's characteristic combination of wit, irony,...
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