Bill Bryson is a man of many words, and most of them are used hilariously describing everyday nothings that are rarely acknowledged, let alone in pieces of non-fiction prose. Raised in Des Moines, Iowa, Bryson later made his home and had a family in Britain. He took up camp on the small island for over twenty years before moving to the U.S. for a brief stint in Hanover, N.H. Bryson won over hearts on both sides of the pond, so if you think your book collection is complete without a Bryson, read on.
Some of Bryson’s most notable publications include A Walk in the Woods, I’m a Stranger Here Myself, Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe, A Short History of Nearly Everything, and In a Sunburned Country. He recently penned a memoir entitled, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, which highlights his years as a young boy with a, “totally all-American childhood” (Random House). In Neither Here Nor There, readers travel to Europe with Bryson, who was reliving an overseas adventure he undertook as a young man.
His references to the young adult antics with his travel mate, Stephen Katz, are hysterically woven into a story that explores history, the excitement of travel, and other cultures. If the amusement of Katz is something a reader can’t get enough of, picking up a copy of A Walk in the Woods should quench that thirst, a hugely popular book written by Bryson about the duo’s trek on the Appalachian Trail.
With striking wit, Bryson may cause moments of public embarrassment with a humor that could make you laugh out loud on the subway or in a café. He is talented enough to simultaneously insult and adore a country and its people in one sentence. It never ceases to amaze how effortlessly both writing and humor come together for him.
Whether he is debating the hotline phone numbers on the back of a toothpaste tube or the sheer enormity of problems introduced with the personal computer, Bryson can make the most mundane topics seem of the utmost importance.
There is no other author who spend hours discussing the dangers of trying to cross a road in Paris, agonizing over the lack of instruction in instruction manuals, or the plight of walking to the post office here in N.H.