Bill Bryson

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Bill Bryson


Born
in Des Moines, Iowa, The United States
December 08, 1951

Genre


Bill Bryson is a bestselling American-British author known for his witty and accessible nonfiction books spanning travel, science, and language. He rose to prominence with Notes from a Small Island (1995), an affectionate portrait of Britain, and solidified his global reputation with A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), a popular science book that won the Aventis and Descartes Prizes. Raised in Iowa, Bryson lived most of his adult life in the UK, working as a journalist before turning to writing full-time. His other notable works include A Walk in the Woods, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, and The Mother Tongue. Bryson served as Chancellor of Durham University (2005–2011) and received numerous honorary degrees and awards, ...more

Average rating: 4.05 · 1,800,877 ratings · 110,423 reviews · 134 distinct worksSimilar authors
A Walk in the Woods: Redisc...

4.07 avg rating — 438,375 ratings — published 1998 — 34 editions
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A Short History of Nearly E...

4.22 avg rating — 414,891 ratings — published 2003 — 298 editions
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In a Sunburned Country

4.08 avg rating — 119,781 ratings — published 2000 — 102 editions
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Notes from a Small Island

3.92 avg rating — 118,294 ratings — published 1995 — 133 editions
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The Body: A Guide for Occup...

4.31 avg rating — 96,190 ratings — published 2019 — 10 editions
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At Home: A Short History of...

3.99 avg rating — 97,706 ratings — published 2010 — 6 editions
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Neither Here nor There: Tra...

3.85 avg rating — 78,321 ratings — published 1991 — 94 editions
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I'm a Stranger Here Myself:...

3.90 avg rating — 68,801 ratings — published 1998 — 114 editions
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The Life and Times of the T...

3.94 avg rating — 67,624 ratings — published 2006 — 100 editions
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The Lost Continent: Travels...

3.81 avg rating — 63,995 ratings — published 1989 — 2 editions
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More books by Bill Bryson…
Notes from a Small Island The Road to Little Dribblin...
(2 books)
by
3.87 avg rating — 156,511 ratings

Notes from a Small Island The Road to Little Dribblin...
(2 books)
by
3.87 avg rating — 156,511 ratings

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Quotes by Bill Bryson  (?)
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“Not one of your pertinent ancestors was squashed, devoured, drowned, starved, stranded, stuck fast, untimely wounded, or otherwise deflected from its life's quest of delivering a tiny charge of genetic material to the right partner at the right moment in order to perpetuate the only possible sequence of hereditary combinations that could result -- eventually, astoundingly, and all too briefly -- in you.”
Bill Bryson, A Short History of Nearly Everything

“But that's the glory of foreign travel, as far as I am concerned. I don't want to know what people are talking about. I can't think of anything that excites a greater sense of childlike wonder than to be in a country where you are ignorant of almost everything. Suddenly you are five years old again. You can't read anything, you have only the most rudimentary sense of how things work, you can't even reliably cross a street without endangering your life. Your whole existence becomes a series of interesting guesses.”
Bill Bryson, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

“As my father always used to tell me, 'You see, son, there's always someone in the world worse off than you.' And I always used to think, 'So?”
Bill Bryson, The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America

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