What an absolute delight this was! After reading two really dark novels, down under lifted my spirts immensely. In addition I learnt so much about a country I now have to visit. Like all of Bryson’s travel books, I was mesmerized by the fascination people he met. Adding small outbursts of laughter to the mix, and the book reached perfection. Bill Bryson is a brilliant writer, curious in a way that makes life interesting.

Lovely little adventure a la Bill Bryson

n  No one knows, incidentally, why Australia's spiders are so extravagantly toxic; capturing small insects and injecting them with enough poison to drop a horse would appear to be the most literal case of overkill. Still, it does mean that everyone gives them lots of space.n

What an absolutely stunning endorsement. As with his other traveling books, Bill Bryson hip hops his way across a country - visiting monuments and interviewing natives.

We meet quirky characters and Australian wildlife galore - from the poisonous snakes to the brutal kookaburra Incidentally, did you know that the kookaburra likes to bash its prey until their bones have been pulverized? Apparently its easier to digest that way...lovely...

He also has quite a lot to say about Australians:

n  They spend half of any conversation insisting that the country's dangers are vastly overrated and that there's nothing to worry about, and the other half telling you how six months ago their Uncle Bob was driving to Mudgee when a tiger snake slid out from under the dashboard and bit him on the groin, but that it's okay now because he's off the life support machine and they've discovered he can communicate with eye blinks.n

To be fair, Bill Bryson does have plenty of good things to say about Australia. As he goes from town to town, he describes delicious sounding dishes and has a way with describing the atmosphere such that you feel like you are really there.

About halfway through the book, I did start to get a bit bored (this book became a bit samey-samey with every town he visited). That being said, I did enjoy reading this somewhat unusual trek through Australia.

Audiobook Comments
Nothing too special - was well-read if a bit bland in tone/inflection.

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I love Bill Bryson. Yep, it's a full-blown, one-sided bromance. Bryson could write a book about the history of the individual rooms within the typical house and I would love it (he did and I did)! So, when I discovered he'd written about his experiences while traveling Australia, I knew I'd found my next good read!

In a Sunburned Country takes in the Land Down-Under, from today traveling all the way back to its earliest historical findings. You expect and get a look at modern Australia, its UK-convict days, Sydney and other cities, the bush, the outback, and the plight, trials and importance of the aborigines.

All of the above also comes with a healthy dose of Bryson humor. It's self-deprecating, it's consciously delusional for comedy's sake, it's honest and it gives me the chuckles. I appreciate that he puts himself in awkward situations and really enjoy his description of scenes in which he is a participating victim. Australia has countless ways to kill a person, what with all its deadly animals, so there's plenty of opportunity for hair-raising hilarity, especially considering Bryson's the sort of guy who could get himself savaged by a hedgehog.

Fun is fun and all, but in the end this book is about the knowledge, so if you have an interest in learning more about Australia, I couldn't recommend another book more highly. The author is a full-on philomath and he loves this country, so the reader is treated to a veritable love-fest spewed all over the pages of In a Sunburned Country!

Bill Bryson never seems to use the same approach to each of his books. Is this book going to be snarky Bill? Is this going to be funny Bill? Is this going to be funny, yet informative Bill? Is this going to be snarky, yet informative Bill? I could go on, but my hands would start to cramp up with the unlimited combinations.

This one is reverential, informative, and mostly self-effacing humor Bill. Bill loves Australians, but he hates the fact that the country is over-run with hordes of killer species and there’s a big hot-assed desert in the middle of the continent.

Australians are lovely people. The one’s I’ve known were incredibly friendly and generous. I worked with a couple who were touring the United States and working at odd jobs along the way. When they were leaving, they gave me their contact information and invited me to visit at any time. If they are reading this, my family will be down under in a week or so and plan to stay for about a month. We don’t eat much beyond shrimp and steak and don’t wish to try vegemite, so thanks and keep that stuff to yourself. So good onya, mates and crikey and stuff!!

Although it’s a topic that needs examining, Bryson’s writing on the treatment of Aborigines seems out of place and shrill compared with the Australian lovefest and repeated warnings about deadly jelly fish, killer spiders and gun-toting snakes.

This was a buddy read with la doyenne of non-fiction buddy reads: Le Trish.

“I am not, I regret to say, a discreet and fetching sleeper. Most people when they nod off look as if they could do with a blanket; I look as if I could do with medical attention. I sleep as if injected with a powerful experimental muscle relaxant. My legs fall open in a grotesque come-hither manner; my knuckles brush the floor. Whatever is inside—tongue, uvula, moist bubbles of intestinal air—decides to leak out. From time to time, like one of those nodding-duck toys, my head tips forward to empty a quart or so of viscous drool onto my lap, then falls back to begin loading again with a noise like a toilet cistern filling. And I snore, hugely and helplessly, like a cartoon character, with rubbery flapping lips and prolonged steam-valve exhalations. For long periods I grow unnaturally still, in a way that inclines onlookers to exchange glances and lean forward in concern, then dramatically I stiffen and, after a tantalizing pause, begin to bounce and jostle in a series of whole-body spasms of the sort that bring to mind an electric chair when the switch is thrown. Then I shriek once or twice in a piercing and effeminate manner and wake up to find that all motion within five hundred feet has stopped and all children under eight are clutching their mothers’ hems. It is a terrible burden to bear.”

I read this book for a challenge and I don’t think I would read it otherwise. I have never read anything by Bill Bryson. I don’t really read travel books (the few I read where pretty boring and uninspiring). I also don’t read funny books because I usually find them just silly and not funny at all. And here I found a book that I really loved.

At the outset, I must say that Australia has always fascinated me. I have never been there, since I were a teenager I liked to read about it and it always seemed very exciting to me. Probably that's why I have a 'australia' shelf on the GR, and I do not have a shelf dedicated any other region/country. So the very subject of this book worked in its favor.

And God, but Bill Bryson makes a wonderful work in this one. These are not just mundane entries from Bill Bryson's journey, it is much more than that. He carried out very detailed research, read many books and all the most fascinating little tidbits included in this book. And maybe even not only the most interesting, because Bill Bryson can tell so wonderfully that everything seems fascinating. The most boring moments in history become colorful stories straight from Hollywood movies. Flora (which usually interests me less than moderate) seems to be the most interesting thing on this planet. And all the facts that he gives us seem to be curiosities that we will not find anywhere else. This is all seasoned with a powerful dose of humor and a large distance to oneself.

As I rarely laugh when I read a book, here I laughed time and again. The language of this book is so colorful that it is impossible to do otherwise. And what's even stranger, I have the impression that I remember a lot from this read. Reading it, I had the impression that I learn a lot. I also really appreciate that the author has placed a bibliography at the end. It's just something! It proves a thorough preparation for writing this story and respect for the reader. The author did not write this or that just because he thinks it’s like that, but he did detailed research, checked when he had doubts. It is a great feeling for the reader to know that the author values him/her so much.

I already recommended this book to my best friend. And I will definitely read the other books from this author.

Fun book! I love all the Bryson books I've read. This one really makes me want to visit Australia! Sounds like a frightening and wonderful place!

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding plains

otherwise known as Australia



Join Bill Bryson as he explores this vast island continent from his American viewpoint.

Australia doesn’t misbehave. It is stable and peaceful and good. It doesn’t have coups, recklessly over-fish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities, or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. And Americans know nothing about it

It has more things that will kill you than anywhere else. Of the world’s ten most poisonous snakes, all are Australian. Five of its creatures—the funnel web spider, box jellyfish, blue-ringed octopus, paralysis tick, and stone-fish—are the most lethal of their type in the world. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. Pick up an innocuous cone shell from a Queensland beach, as innocent tourists are all too wont to do, and you will discover that the little fellow inside is not just astoundingly swift and testy but exceedingly venomous. 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. It’s a tough place.

Somehow Bill survives these dangers and is able to tell us all about this amazing country in his humorous style.



I often feel that he is not just writing a book, but personally telling funny tales from his life. And so I can refer to Bill as my friend. Listen to him and see if you too want to be friends.

Enjoy!

Published in the US and Canada as In a Sunburned Country, this book was titled—in the rest of the world, including Australia itself—Down Under. It’s about Bill Bryson’s adventures Down Under, exploring Australia, touring all the major sights (Uluru, Alice Springs, and the Great Barrier Reef included), as well as going to some out of the way, relatively little-known places (one of only three colonies of living stromatolites, for instance). He takes us on a tour—as he himself does the actual legwork, sometimes accompanied by friends and associates—of the cities, the little one-horse (or one-pub) towns, the Outback.

Along the way, we are entertained with anecdotes of Bryson’s travels through Australia: the excitement of seeing the Giant Worms, the thrill of coming across an echidna in a city park, the sheer horror of nearly running out of petrol in the middle of nowhere, on a road in the Outback. Getting sunburnt, finding oneself within almost-brushing distance of a deadly box jellyfish. Gawping at the splendour of the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the iconic Opera House. Getting lost in Canberra.

And, being Bryson, he gives you lots of the quirkiest, most delightfully enthralling information alongside. Did you know, for instance, about the Australian Prime Minister who one day wandered out into the sea for a swim and was lost? Lost, as in so lost that his body was never found? Or that Thirstyville, Opossum, Shakespeare, Wheatwoolgold, and Victoria Defendera Defender were all names suggested for the new capital (which eventually retained the original name of the site, Canberra)? Or that a naturalist named Gerard Krefft has an interesting place in the history of Australian exploration and the study of natural history: He, “… in 1857 caught two very rare pig-footed bandicoots. Unfortunately for science and for the bandicoots, Krefft soon afterward grew hungry and ate them. They were, as far as anyone can tell, the last of the species. Certainly none have been seen since. Krefft, incidentally, was later appointed head of the Australian Museum in Sydney, but was invited to seek alternative employment when it was discovered that he was supplementing his salary by selling pornographic postcards. I am sure there must be a moral in there somewhere.”

Bryson’s book is a mine of information on everything from the Aborigines to the discovery of Australia by the West and its origins as a prison. He writes about the cities, the wildlife (plant and animal), the history of exploration, even cricket. All through, you get a great feel of Bryson himself: irreverent, often self-deprecatingly humorous, curiouser than the most curious of cats. And a fabulous writer.

Highly recommended.

Ho cominciato questo libro con molti dubbi.
Del resto, a ben vedere, perché mi sarebbe dovuto interessare un libro sull'Australia?

La conosco poco, non sto programmando viaggi in quel continente, e raramente se ne sente parlare.

Poco a poco invece, durante la lettura, mi sono ritrovato sempre più preso dalla sua storia e dai suoi luoghi. Merito senza dubbio di Bill Bryson e della sua scrittura scorrevole, in grado di divertirti con aneddoti assurdi riversandoti addosso allo stesso tempo moli di nozioni.
Ed è così che scopriamo non solo le origini dell'Australia inglese e di alcune sue città, o degli screzi tra gli stati che la compongono, ma anche della quantità di specie animali letali che la popolano, e di quanto tutto su questo continente molto più enorme e inesplorato di quanto chiunque potrebbe ritenere possibile conspirino contro la vita umana.

Una lettura affascinante, che quasi fa venire voglia di imitare l'autore intraprendendo questi viaggi avventurosi.
Poi si pensa alle meduse scatola, agli squali, ai pesciolini e ai molluschi letali, ai coccodrilli in agguato, ai serpenti e ai ragni più velenosi al mondo, agli uragani e agli incendi, alle dimensioni e alle possibilità di fermarsi con la macchina rotta in mezzo al nulla, e l'impulso scema lentamente.

When I read Bill Bryson, I am prepared to learn a lot about whatever locale he is covering in the book, knowing some of it will go right over my head, plus to be entertained by his snarky humor. No different here. Some of the Australian towns were less interesting than others, but it's obvious that Bill enjoys his travels even with all his complaints and sarcasm. Australia is so "preposterously outsized" he could travel it forever and never see all there is.

He was amazed by how we never hear much news from Australia. Who could remember their Prime Ministers or name any time they tried to invade a neighboring island? On the other hand, some Australians know more about what our Prez is up to than do our own next door neighbors.

Here are his closing words... what he wants us to take from the book if nothing else.... No sarcasm this time.

Australia is mostly empty and a long way away. Its population is small and its role in the world consequently peripheral. It doesn't have coups, recklessly over-fish, arm disagreeable despots, grow coca in provocative quantities, or throw its weight around in a brash and unseemly manner. It is stable and peaceful and good; it doesn't need watching and so we don't. But I will tell you this, the loss is entirely ours. You see Australia is an interesting place. It truly is. And that really is all I'm saying.

This audiobook was narrated by the author. It took me a bit of time to get used to his voice and his very deadpan delivery of his dry humor. Props to him for getting it right. I will be listening to him again soon, I hope.

Two visits to the Land Down Under in the same month! When my childhood reference was, you guessed it, Crocodile Dundee. I’ve learned more about Australia than I’d known in my prior five decades.

I walked around with this book for a while, getting excited comments from many. Lots of fond memories, even some requests to borrow it when I was done. They all remembered A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail, which was one reason I picked this up. The other: it was on the “free” table outside the English department. One day, I’m gonna end up at the bottom of a Burmese tiger trap because of that darn table.



Bryson shares the details of a few visits, partially for writing, partially for pleasure (which then turns into writing). That rakish perspective is there: lots of self-deprecation and embarrassment. He describes himself as completely non-buoyant, a raucous sleeper, and often hungover. It’s also fun to hear him describe all the ways Australia can kill you.

Different than AWITW, this one has more history. He tells them in the form of anecdotes, less like a professor and more like your dad. Lots of fun facts, lots of little crazy observations. Chock full of stuff to remember, and the more than occasional unbelievable tale, like that of the American couple left behind by a diving company. And when it comes to nature, he makes a great case for seeing Australia for its beauty. I finished having added the Great Barrier Reef to my bucket list. In fact, he comments that travel-related bucket lists are starting to have the “while I still can” suffix to them.

But for those who enjoyed the reflective, existential nature of AWITW, you’ll be a little disappointed. There’s no narrative here: it’s a travel guide, not a story. The humor helps, but not enough to be as inspired as his usual work. The passages also didn’t follow any structure, either with time or place. Maybe I missed something, but I felt a little all over the map.

Finally, and it’s probably my own fault, it felt dated. No internet or phone or social media references, and politically it seemed…innocent? This is pre-9/11, after all. Even descriptions of clothes were old-ish. Though it hurt in the soul to think of a book published in 2000 as “dated.” Because it was around then I started to feel…like an adult.

Yeah, I prefer historical fiction, and thus I kept thinking, “I’d have preferred a saucy story like The Thorn Birds” to learn about a place. Anyway, travel fans and fans of being stung to death by uncategorizeable crustaceans with acid-spewing tentacles will love it.