Bill Bryson

Back in America after twenty years in Britain, Bill Bryson decided to reacquaint himself with his native country by walking the 2,100-mile Appalachian Trail, which stretches from Georgia to Maine. The AT offers an astonishing landscape of silent forests and sparkling lakes--and to a writer like Bill Bryson, it also provides endless opportunities to witness the majestic silliness of his fellow human beings. For a start, there's the gloriously out-of-shape...

"Bill Bryson apprenticed himself to a host of the world's most profound scientific minds, living and dead. His challenge is to take subjects like geology, chemistry, paleontology, astronomy, and particle physics and see of there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people, like himself, made bored (or scared) stiff of science in school. His interest is not simply to discover what we know but to find out how we know it. How do we know what...

An unsparing and hilarious account of one man's rediscovery of America and his search for the perfect small town.

Bill Bryson was born in the middle of the American century, in the middle of the United States, and in the middle of the largest generation in American history. He is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally American childhood. Like many of his peers, he grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero, in his case, "The Thunderbolt Kid." Using this persona, the author re-creates the life of his family and his native city of Des Moines,...

"Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was 'Notes from a Small Island'. . . . Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed -- and what hasn't. Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis in the south to Cape Wrath in the north, by way of places few travelers...

With dazzling wit and astonishing insight, Bill Bryson-the acclaimed author of The Lost Continent-brilliantly explores the remarkable history, eccentricities, resilience and sheer fun of the English language. From the first descent of the larynx into the throat (why you can talk but your dog can't), to the fine lost art of swearing, Bryson tells the fascinating, often uproarious story of an inadequate, second-rate tongue of peasants that developed...

Bill Bryson, bestselling author of The Mother Tongue, now celebrates its magnificent offspring in the book that reveals once and for all how a dusty western hamlet with neither woods nor holly came to be known as Hollywood . . . and exactly why Mr. Yankee Doodle called his be feathered cap "Macaroni."

Before New York Times bestselling author Bill Bryson wrote The Road to Little Dribbling, he took this delightfully irreverent jaunt around the unparalleled floating nation of Great Britain, which has produced zebra crossings, Shakespeare, Twiggie Winkie's Farm, and places with names like Farleigh Wallop and Titsey.

Bill Bryson, instead of retiring to enjoy his loving and beautiful wife and large and happy family, challenges himself to hike the Appalachian Trail: 2,200 miles of America's most unspoiled, spectacular, and rugged countryside from Georgia to Maine. The peace and tranquility he hopes to find, though, is anything but, when the only person he can find willing to join him on the trek is his long-lost former friend Katz, a down-on-his-luck serial philanderer....