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In a Sunburned Country

4.01 of 5 stars 4.01 · rating details · 33,707 ratings · 2,553 reviews

As his many British fans already know, bearded Yankee butterball Bill Bryson specialises in going to countries we think we know well, only to return with travelogues that are surprisingly cynical and yet shockingly affectionate. It's a unique style, possibly best suited to the world's weirder destinations. It's helpful here: Bryson's latest subject is that oddest of contin...more

Kindle Edition, 352 pages

Published March 2nd 2010 by Transworld Digital (first published 2000)

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May 26, 2008 Martine rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: history, non-fiction, travel-writing

I developed a taste for Bill Bryson last year when I read his Short History of Nearly Everything, an ambitious attempt to trace the history of life, the universe and everything in just 574 pages. While many of the scientific discoveries outlined in the book were a little beyond me, I thoroughly enjoyed Bryson's descriptions of the larger-than-life personalities behind the discoveries, which really brought the science described to life. So when I found out that he had also written a travelogue of...more I developed a taste for Bill Bryson last year when I read his Short History of Nearly Everything, an ambitious attempt to trace the history of life, the universe and everything in just 574 pages. While many of the scientific discoveries outlined in the book were a little beyond me, I thoroughly enjoyed Bryson's descriptions of the larger-than-life personalities behind the discoveries, which really brought the science described to life. So when I found out that he had also written a travelogue of a journey across the country I may soon call home -- Australia -- I simply had to read it.

Australia, for those of you who have never been there, is one of the most colourful places on earth. It has a history so bizarre that it makes China's seem normal by comparison. It has insane expanses of the most arid desert imaginable, as well as some of the world's most beautiful beaches, where unfortunately you can't swim due to the prevalence of sharks, crocs, box jellyfish, stingrays and murderous rip currents. It houses beyond a shadow of a doubt the world's most interesting flora and fauna, including twelve-foot earthworms and living fossils. (And you thought kangaroos were exotic. Ha.) And if all that weren't interesting enough, the locals are slightly mad. They eat meat pies floating in pea soup, are crazy about cricket and consider shorts and knee-length socks proper attire for middle-aged bus drivers. In short, it's a unique place and I love it. I look forward to moving there in a few months' time.

Bill Bryson also loves Australia, and it shows. While he likes to remind his readers of the country's amazing collection of deathly animals (over and over again) and poke fun at the locals and their weird habits, his affection for the place shines through in every chapter, and it's quite infectious. By describing his own travels and those of early settlers, explorers and naturalists, he provides the reader with an appreciation for how vast and unwelcoming the country is, and how utterly unique. He provides background information on events of which few non-Australians will have heard (such as the fact that a nuclear bomb may have been detonated in the outback without anyone noticing, and that an Australian Prime Minister once vanished, never to be seen again), waxes lyrical on trees and animals so bizarre that you'll want to hop on the first plane to Australia to check them out for yourself (again, kangaroos are only the beginning), explains why you should go and see Ayers Rock even if you've already seen hundreds of photos of it, and intersperses all this useful information with a winning combination of self-deprecating humour, bizarre anecdotes, absurd dialogue and entertaining accounts of encounters with fellow travellers and locals. The resulting book is not only completely recognisable to anyone who has visited Australia, but hugely appealing to anyone who hasn't. I doubt anyone can read this book without wishing to book a flight to Oz immediately afterwards.

If I have any complaint about Down Under, it is that there is too little of it. While Bryson's writing is entertaining and informative, his choice of places to visit and describe seems rather random and limited. I wish he had done more travelling, gone further into the interior of the country and left all traces of luxury behind him for a while, so as to emulate the pioneers and explorers whose exploits he relates with such gusto. I also think the book would have benefited from slightly more rigorous editing, as parts of it seem rather hastily written. For all its small flaws, though, Down Under (released in the US as In a Sunburned Country) is a fascinating read which has whetted my appetite for more Bryson travelogues. And for a return to Oz, but that's another story.
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Jun 04, 2013 Caroline rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 5-star-books

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Contains spoilers

A wonderful read! From belly laughs to joy, from horror to disbelief….. in this book we have a riveting journey though this amazing and oh-so-different continent. Surely there are few authors who could begin to tackle the scope of this giant hunk of land, but Bryson is a master writer, and he tackles Australia superbly well - with enthusiasm, insight and bucket loads of his wonderful self-deprecating humour.

These were some of my favourite bits in the book:

* His trip to White Cl...more

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Sep 12, 2008 Collette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people that yearn to see the world.

Shelves: history

Ok! First of all I'm here to tell you that non-fiction is normally not my bag. I think I got this book because I forgot to send in the "do not send" notice in a book club. That said..... I'm soooo happy that I didn't and I "made" myself read this. OMG!!! I lost track of how many times I laughed until there were tears running down my cheeks and how many smiles and chuckles it rang out of me!
This is a book about Bryson's trips (I believe he combines a few trips to "Oz" into this one book) to the...more

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Sep 27, 2012 Lisa (Harmonybites) rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone

Shelves: 2012-around-the-world, biography, history, humor-and-comedy, memoir, non-fiction, travel, ultimate-reading-list

This travelogue of an American in Australia was hilarious. I had no choice; I had to give this five stars. I have this rule you see: if a book makes me think, cry, or laugh out loud, I give it top marks. I was smiling madly by the middle of the first page--at page 17 I was giggling. I haven't laughed so often or so hard since Gaiman and Pratchett's Good Omens. Bryson gets a lot of mileage out of Australia being a "wondrously venomous and toothy country." Here's a snippet:

"You probably won't see...more

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Jun 13, 2013 Mikey B. rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bill Bryson delivers! Even though I have never been to Australia I was delighted with this book. Bryson gives the full range – history, natural history (botany, zoology. paleontology...), people insights, cities, outback towns and scenic wonders of which there are plenty of in Australia – a truly Renaissance view of the continent. Plus it’s hilarious – his encounters with other tourists, seedy hotels, pubs, waiters and hotel receptionists – but especially cricket!

The man ingests humour into dive...more

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Jul 12, 2009 C. rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: australian, own-or-access, non-fiction, to-be-re-read

This was funny. It was really funny. I remember reading it in a public place and snorting - like, actually snorting like a pig - from trying to contain my laughter, and then looking around surreptitiously to see if anyone had noticed. This is unusual because I very rarely laugh out loud when reading a book. It has to reach whole new levels of hilarity to make me snort. In fact, this may well be the only snort-worthy book I've ever read. This guy really knows how to find the funny in a situation....more This was funny. It was really funny. I remember reading it in a public place and snorting - like, actually snorting like a pig - from trying to contain my laughter, and then looking around surreptitiously to see if anyone had noticed. This is unusual because I very rarely laugh out loud when reading a book. It has to reach whole new levels of hilarity to make me snort. In fact, this may well be the only snort-worthy book I've ever read. This guy really knows how to find the funny in a situation. I admire that.

It was also very interesting, filled with informative, weird, funny little anecdotes about the people he met and the things he learned. And some worrying things as well, especially about people's attitudes to Aboriginals. He went on at some length (it occasionally got tiring) about just how incredibly BIG Australia is, which to be honest was not something I had ever really thought about. The vast majority of Australia's population lives in the large coastal cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth etc.), and most of the rest is squashed into the relatively tiny strip of land around the southern coast, which has a lot to do with why the population is so small. The interior is arid, inhospitable and practically deserted: an endless desert with a big red rock in the middle. There are other countries that are bigger (about five, I think), but, I don't know, there's something about vast tracts of uninhabited/unexplored wastes that doesn't fit the image of Australia as a bustling, modern, prosperous western country that most of us have.

The massiveness of Australia isn't really something that city-dwellers like me have to face very often: in fact, it's easy to ignore until you try and leave the country. It only takes about three to four hours to fly to New Zealand from Melbourne, but if you want to get pretty much anywhere else except for a few Pacific islands you have to fly across the entire body of the country. It takes seven to eight hours to get to Singapore, most of which time is spent over the desert. If you want to get anywhere that's not Southern Asia it can easily take 24 hours. If you're as tall as me (which is tall for a woman, but not that tall), the prospect of that length of time spent in economy class with your knees jammed up against your chin is almost enough to convince you to stay put for the rest of your life. Possibly the thing that amazed me most when I went to France was that I could just get on a train (a train!) at St. Quentin and sit there for four hours and end up in Marseilles. In other words, I basically crossed the country! In FOUR HOURS. Even now, the idea is barely comprehensible.

Anyway, Bill Bryson did a good job with that. It's much easier to forget than it should be: Australia's size and isolation from Europe was a defining part of its history. In fact, I believe Geoffrey Blainey wrote an entire book on it (The Tyranny of Distance, which is lying about the house somewhere, shamefully unread). So Bryson waxed lyrical, somewhat repetitively at times, with stories about scientists finding a species of ant/beetle/marsupial/reptile that everyone had believed extinct for thousands of years and whose existence would have upended everything we thought we knew about everything, except that when the scientists went back they were completely unable to find them again because it turns out there are quite a lot of rocks in the desert that bear a slight resemblance to Aunt Mabel's head after she had her nasal reconstruction surgery. Or similar.

All good stuff. Despite this, however, the book was disappointing to me because nothing he said about the parts of Australia I am familiar with seemed resoundingly true. I was hoping for (nay, expecting) a few of those amazing sentences that just leap out at you as expressing something profoundly universal. Probably I was just subconsciously waiting for him to say something like "Melbourne is an amazing city, clearly superior to Sydney in ever way" (damn inferiority complex; I don't really have anything against Sydney), and when he didn't - because it is patently not true - I was disappointed.

Looking back now, I know that was a silly thing to hope for. Firstly, it's gotta be hard to generalise an entire country, especially one as diverse as Australia. Secondly, it's hard to see how I would recognise any such profundity even if there was some: I have spent four days in Sydney in the last ten years and have not been to any other state capital that I can remember. Thirdly, Bryson approached Australia as a visitor, more than a tourist but much less than a native, and the book was written from that perspective. Which is as it should be - anything else would be guaranteed to be insulting and wrong.(less)

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Mar 03, 2010 Hannah rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: non-fiction, humor, 2010-reads

A fun re-read from one of my favorite authors, Bill Bryson. Any book that Bryson pens is sure to lead to uncontrollable laughter, snorts, chortles or gaffaws, so plan your reading time accordingly. Not recommended reading material for mime class, funerals, or anywhere quiet, confined and where you will be surrounded by strangers - trust me on this. Even your own family members (*ehem* teenage daughters) might have a tendency to think you finally, irrevocably lost it and look warily at you as if...more

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Feb 11, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished, owned-and-gave-away

Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country (Broadway, 2000)

I originally encountered the writing of Bill Bryson in a small article he wrote for National Geographic on the Orkney Islands a year or so ago. By the time I had finished the article, I was (and still am, to an extent) seriously considering relocating to the Orkney Islands. Well, I've now finished In a Sunburned Country, Bryson's travelogue of Australia-- and I never, ever want to go there.

Bryson gives us the world's forgotten continent (really...more Bill Bryson, In a Sunburned Country (Broadway, 2000)

I originally encountered the writing of Bill Bryson in a small article he wrote for National Geographic on the Orkney Islands a year or so ago. By the time I had finished the article, I was (and still am, to an extent) seriously considering relocating to the Orkney Islands. Well, I've now finished In a Sunburned Country, Bryson's travelogue of Australia-- and I never, ever want to go there.

Bryson gives us the world's forgotten continent (really, how many of you who don't live there can name Australia's Prime Minister?), mixing personal experience, history, and bewilderment in roughly equal doses. While the history does bog down in places, I found myself-- especially in the book's first section-- glad that I was the only person in the room while reading it, since I might well have been committed involuntarily for laughing so hard in stretches. The most disturbing thing is that I was laughing about the sheer number of things in Australia which are capable of killing human beings. This is not a place you should go if you fear death. "The sea snakes are especially unnerving, not because they are aggressive, but because they are inquisitive. Stray into their territory and they'll come to check you out, all but rubbing against you in the manner of cats seeking affection. They are the most sweet-tempered creatures in existence. But cross them or alarm them and they can hit you with enough venom to kill three grown men." Not only will the unfriendly creatures kill you, the friendly ones will as well!

Those who have read more Bryson than I have hastened to say that this is a less humorous book than his others. I'm not sure I could stand the others, for I might die of asphyxia before reaching the end of chapter one. This is good stuff, funny most of the time, sobering on rare occasions, and always edifying. And don't be concerned if you forget three quarters of what's in here by the time you're finished, including the name of Australia's present prime minister (or the name of the silicon-tipped grass I've been wracking my brain for for a week now). According to Bryson, there's something about Australia that causes people to forget it exists, so as long as you remember there are seven continents on this planet, you're ahead of the game. *** (less)

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Jul 09, 2010 Tatiana rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: people who want to learn more about Australia

Recommended to Tatiana by: Hannahr

Shelves: non-fiction, 2010, foreign-lands

I almost forgot how much fun it is to read books about foreign countries and cultures. As soon as opened In a Sunburned Country, memories of reading travelogues about U.S. rushed back to me. Oh, how amazed I was those years ago to learn that apparently many Americans put their T-shirts on to swim in the pool and wear extra underwear underneath their swimming trucks (I am originally from one of those speedo countries) or that to go to a school dance you just have to have a boy-friend who is oblig...more

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Oct 27, 2008 Tara Calaby rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: People wanting to visit Australia

Shelves: travel, humour, own, australia

Some parts of this book are admittedly less interesting than others, but I will always love it for the fact that it records the true horror of our native species ;)

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Jan 03, 2009 April West rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This book is so funny, so well-written, and so interesting I couldn't stop reading it, even when I had to use a caver's headlamp and stuff my pillow into my mouth to keep from waking my family with my laughter. Bryson is a master writer, and hilarious. His tour of Australia is interesting, and he does not gloss over the "problem" of the relationship between European Australians and the Aborigines. Though I was occasionally put off by seemingly random sexist comments, I still enjoyed the heck out...more

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May 23, 2012 Ankur Rastogi rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"Down Under" is a travellogue by a famous travel writer Bill Bryson. The writing style is witty and the information about Australia is enormous. Bill in 400+ pages covers the entire length and breadth of the country and as you will read and realize Australia is a large country...a very large country. At the same time, as the writer points out, not much is known about this vast nation which at the same time is a continent as well. It feels surprising to read that almost the entire country is deve...more

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Feb 23, 2010 Fred rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: 2010-read, australia, travel

In A Sunburned Country is another great piece of travel non-fiction by Bill Bryson. I'd previously read "A Walk in the Woods" which I think is one of the greatest travel/adventure books I've read. I've also read "Notes From A Small Island" which was a bit disappointing in comparison to the greatness of "Woods" Sunburned Country is all about Australia. It's a fantastic book full of wit and wisdom. One of the things which Bryson does quite well is insert odd facts and history about the place he's...more

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Oct 09, 2009 Men D. rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Constance and I both read this book on our trip to Australia; she didn’t finish hers in time so I had to spring for a new copy for myself. On the other hand, Bill Bryson is easily excited and on many pages sentences such as "Kingsford Smith was quite possibly the greatest aviator ever to lived," and "The funeral for the pilots of the Kookabura was quite possibly the greatest that Sydney had ever seen" and "This spot was quite possibly the remotest and hottest and driest on the planet, or any pla...more Constance and I both read this book on our trip to Australia; she didn’t finish hers in time so I had to spring for a new copy for myself. On the other hand, Bill Bryson is easily excited and on many pages sentences such as "Kingsford Smith was quite possibly the greatest aviator ever to lived," and "The funeral for the pilots of the Kookabura was quite possibly the greatest that Sydney had ever seen" and "This spot was quite possibly the remotest and hottest and driest on the planet, or any planet, ever" and "These people were quite possibly the friendliest living organisms ever to have lived, in life or in anyone's imagination," etc. This formula - X is quite possibly the most Y ever - is the result of Bryson's sloppy, giddy, researchless prose. Things are "quite possibly" superlatives because he doesn't bother to check to see if they actually are. After a while, this tone of endless, groundless enthusiasm grows tiresome and untrustworthy, even though the quips and scenarios remain funny. There's no room in the voice to accommodate the more troubling bits of Australiana, like the slaughter of Aborigines or the widespread racism (and vapidness) of Aussies, even though Bryson makes a stab at covering these issues, he quarantines its unpleasantness and doesn't seem to recognize outside of these chapters that the cheerful friendliness of the white Australians he's meeting might be directed to him only because he fits the Aussie demographic.

Also, I paid $24 AUD for this book because books in Australia are fucking expensive, because they are unread villagers.

Then again, the book was funny and full of interesting stories such as this:

“Consider just one of those stories that did make it into the New York Times in 1997, though buried away in the odd-sock drawer of Section C. In January of that year, according to a report written in America by a Times reporter, scientists were seriously investigating the possibility that a mysterious seismic disturbance in the remote Australian outback almost four years earlier had been a nuclear explosion set off by members of the Japanese doomsday cult Aum Shinrikyo.

“It happens that at 11:03 p.m. local time on the night of 28 May 1993, seismograph needles all over the Pacific region twitched and scribbled in response to a very large-scale disturbance near a place called Banjawarn Station in the Great Victoria Desert of Western Australia. Some long-distance lorry drivers and prospectors, virtually the only people in that lonely expanse, reported seeing a sudden flash in the sky and hearing or feeling the boom of a might but far-off explosion. One reported that a can of beer had danced off the table in his tent.

“The problem was that there was no obvious explanation. The seismograph traces didn’t fit the profile for an earthquake or mining explosion, and anyway the blast was 170 times more powerful than the most powerful mining explosion ever recorded in Western Australia. The shock was consistent with a large meteorite strike, but the impact would have blown a crater hundreds of feet in circumference, and no such crater could be found. The upshot is that scientists puzzled over the incident for a day or two, then filed it away as an unexplained curiosity, the sort of thing that presumably happens from time to time.

“Then in 1995, Aum Shinrikyo gained sudden notoriety when it released extravagant quantities of the nerve gas sarin into the Tokyo underground, killing twelve people. In the investigations that followed, it emerged that Aum’s substantial holdings included a 500,000-acre desert property in western Australia very near the site of the mystery event. There, authorities found a laboratory of unusual sophistication and focus, and evidence that cult members had been mining uranium. It separately emerged that Aum had recruited into its ranks two engineers from the former Soviet Union. The groups avowed aim was the destruction of the world, and it appears that the event in the desert may have been a dry run for blowing up Tokyo.

“You take my point, of course. This is a country that loses a Prime Minister and is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world’s first non-governmental atomic bomb and almost four years would pass before anyone noticed. Clearly this was a place worth getting to know.”
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Jan 14, 2012 Maria M. Elmvang rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everybody

Recommended to Maria M. by: Ruthette

Shelves: 2012, 5-stars, memoir, owned

Some authors have an amazing way with words, and Bill Bryson is definitely one of them. After a single false start, he proceeded to make me utterly homesick for a country I've in large part never visited at all (three weeks total in Cairns, Brisbane and Sydney is nowhere near enough). I learned a bunch of new things about Australia and new places I want to visit. Bill Bryson's love for the country is unmistakable, and makes this not only a fascinating memoir and travel-account, but also an adori...more

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Jan 02, 2009 Jeanette rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Everyone who knows how to read

Shelves: travel-adventure, nonfiction, the-land-down-under, history, five-star-nonfiction, to-be-read-again

How do I love this book? Let me count the ways...Better yet, read it for yourself and you'll discover your own reasons to love it. I honestly cannot think of one person to whom I would not recommend this book. It's fascinating, funny, and fact-filled. I'd bet even native Aussies could learn a thing or five they didn't know about their country.

Australia is an even more interesting place than I thought. Let Bill Bryson give you an entertaining and educational tour. He researched many books and qu...more

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Aug 18, 2008 Bob rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Happy Bryson—book review
August 16, 2008 · No Comments

Finally finished Bill Bryson’s huge book on Australia—”In a Sunburned Country.” I started it months ago and read only a paragraph or so a day. Bryson is a happy writer and a jovial soul. I wonder that he’s not more rotund but then I haven’t seen a recent photo of him. He put the book together about ten years ago out of a number of trips he had taken to Australia.

The Chapter on Ayer’s Rock is remarkably good. Gives a great sense of how impressi...more Happy Bryson—book review
August 16, 2008 · No Comments

Finally finished Bill Bryson’s huge book on Australia—”In a Sunburned Country.” I started it months ago and read only a paragraph or so a day. Bryson is a happy writer and a jovial soul. I wonder that he’s not more rotund but then I haven’t seen a recent photo of him. He put the book together about ten years ago out of a number of trips he had taken to Australia.

The Chapter on Ayer’s Rock is remarkably good. Gives a great sense of how impressive it must be—or might be. And he does the same consistent job for all the other sights he sees, both ordinary and exceptional. The exceptional are mainly natural phenomena.

I’m so used to reading Paul Theroux that when I’m in a Bryson book I start to miss Theroux’s usual grumpiness. Bryson is so steadily pleased with everything and everyone. He fills us in on things in great detail, so you can’t fault the info flow. He has interesting encounters with people and places. So what’s to fault? Well, nothing. But if he asked me to accompany him on a jaunt somewhere I might not go or want to go. He’s too even-keeled, so content with things that at times you wonder whether he is very interesting, really.

He loves Australia and gives it great press in every possible way. Yet after reading the whole book I’m glad to have had the bit of history, the amazing tales of human folly and adventure, the suspicions confirmed about all my impressions—the vastness, the emptiness, the beauty, the dangers. But the book has not increased my interest in ever actually going to Australia. In fact just the opposite. I’ve never been that curious to go and now that I’ve done my duty with the book I can now check it off as a place I need never have any worry about not wanting to visit.

Somehow that is not a comment a publisher would want to put on the back cover of this really good book. But I had a similar reaction years ago in reading another of Bryson’s bestsellers—I do of course envy him his sales and his income—the book on the Appalachian trail. “In These Woods.” Is that the title? Bryson hikes the Trail and gets way much farther along than most, including many of my former students who have set out to do it. But he doesn’t do the whole trail. He shuts down somewhere in Maine before Kahtahdin. Bummer. Now Theroux would never have done that I think to myself. Theroux would have figured some way to have finished the darned thing or he would have put the manuscript back in a drawer and written another book.

It is unfair of me to compare Bill this way. But he lost one of my votes some years ago. He lived for a short while a bit west of here in Hanover, NH. He had lived in England for years and said in print somewhere he wanted to come back to the states to see what’s what. In truth he wanted to put his kids through American high school and get them into American colleges. One of my students who grew up in Hanover knew one of Bryson’s kids and met Bryson on an occasion or two. But again, in print, Bryson said he looked around the country to find a place to live and he had always wanted to live in a typical New England town (he grew up in Kansas & likes Australia because it reminds him so much of Kansas in the 50s), so he chose to live in Hanover, NH.

That’s where he lost my vote. Living in Hanover, NH as a “typical NE town” is a bit like choosing to live in Monaco because you’ve always hankered to sip espresso in a typical Mediterranean village.

I checked a number of times and was dumbfounded each time to realize that nowhere does Bryson mention, even mention, what just might be the finest book ever written about Australia, Bruce Chatwins "The Songlines."
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Jul 31, 2008 Tiffany rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Like most Americans, I have never really given much thought to Australia. It's an island where the seasons are backwards, there's a famous opera house, my ex husband's ex girlfriend is expating it up there, and there are loads of gorgeous men running around shirtless, drinking Fosters and saying "No worries, mate" in a delicious Crocodile Dundee sort of accent. Nothing too exciting, right?

Wrong! Australia is fascinating, and Bill Bryson has done an excellent job of telling us why. This book touc...more

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Sep 30, 2012 Stella rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

The book is really funny with little interesting anecdotes about Australia, a most-interesting country. (Did you know they actually LOST a Prime Minister back in 1967? Or that a bunch of crazy Japanese terrorists may have test-tried a nuclear bomb in its outback? Or that a harmless jellyfish can kill you in utter agony? Or that that is only one of the several species found all over that can? Or that they have living creatures from three and a half million years ago? You get my point.) Stories of...more

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Mar 14, 2008 Lauren rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: everyone, especially those planning to visit me in Australia!!

I re-read this one in preparation for my move to Australia, and, for the first time, realized that there was a good possibility that I could be eaten by a crocodile while working in the rivers here! The book also alerted me to the many other dangerous creatures and long-distance driving that have now become a normal part of my life. Oh, and he was dead on with his description of Canberra. Most boring city ever (though, surprisingly, there are good Ethiopian restaurants there. Yum!). Thanks, Bill...more

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May 24, 2007 Solomon rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This was a bit disappointing considering it being a rendition of a travelogue -- my favorite genre -- of my most favorite continent ever. Bryson, generally extremely adept at mixing humorous personal narrative with informative and insightful commentary on the subject of his travels, just didn't seem to appreciate Australia enough. Or perhaps Bryson's white, overweight, middle-aged stature was just not up for the job. More damaging was his superficial treatment of race relations concerning Austra...more

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May 04, 2013 Cindy rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Bill Bryson’s “In a Sunburned Country” will have you laughing your way across Australia without every having to get off the couch. Bryson’s humor and lighthearted descriptions of just about everything including the people, history, politics, geology, geography, biology and institutions he visits makes him one of the best travel writers of all time. A Sunburned Country is about Bryson’s experiences in Australia broken into “the Outback”, “Civilized Australia”, and “Around the edges”. What separat...more

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Apr 14, 2013 Anirban rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: travelogue, non-fiction, humour, favorites

As I had already stated in my review of Bryson’s “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid”, that I can safely divide my reading period between the periods before and after I had read Bill Bryson. And, after reading Down Under I realized that I have never read a travelogue as well as this. Earlier I used to read a lot of Paul Theroux’s works, but lately I grew tired of his cynicism, and couldn’t find myself search for more of his works.

And so, when I was searching for a travelogue to read, I sp...more

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Apr 04, 2013 Jason Cox rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: nonfiction, travel

In a Sunburned Country is Bill Bryson's entertaining memoir on his travel through Australia.

If you, like me, have always had a strange fascination about that country down under, there's an excellent chance you'll enjoy this book. If you also like dry-witted humor and a strong dose of irony, then this book should probably be the next book you read.

The author, Bill Bryson, is an American-born journalist who lived half of his life in England essentially writing color pieces about things from an Am...more In a Sunburned Country is Bill Bryson's entertaining memoir on his travel through Australia.

If you, like me, have always had a strange fascination about that country down under, there's an excellent chance you'll enjoy this book. If you also like dry-witted humor and a strong dose of irony, then this book should probably be the next book you read.

The author, Bill Bryson, is an American-born journalist who lived half of his life in England essentially writing color pieces about things from an American perspective for the London Times. He has a very interesting style of writing and a combination of British humor and American sensibility that makes for a highly ironic perspective that comes through in all of his writing. If you've read any of his books, you'll already know what I mean.

In this tome, Bryson focuses entirely on the Australian continent. Starting with historical facts and statistics that set up Australia as a strange and wonderful place, he then covers his travels around the country. His travel style is to hunt for gems in a particular area with scientific, historic, or cultural interest and he discusses briefly the interesting things he finds along the way. His discussion doesn't just cover a single trip to the continent down under, but rather combines anecdotes from all of his trips.

Along the way he finds a way to squeeze in colorful descriptions of the peoples of Australia and their general character through individual specific historic examples as well as personal experiences and statistics. He similarly gives a picture of each of Australia's great cities (and several smaller ones) and states. You'll find some interesting, if confusing, discussion of the Australian political system and it's relationship with mother country England.

Periodically, he comes back to historical facts about the country including it's "discovery" in the modern world. Later he talks about it's original "discovery" by ancients who became the aborigines. He gives a fair amount of discussion about the aboriginal people and their strife in the country. A sad discussion, but handled well and with compassion. This is the type of discussion I doubt you'd find in any other book on Australia.

Overall, this is quite an excellent book. It moves quickly and keeps you entertained along the way. If you have the pleasure to get the unabridged audiobook version, you'll be listening to Bryson narrate the book himself. Not all authors do a good job with this. Bill Bryson excels, though.

My only criticisms of the book are as follows: apparently it was written in 1999 or so. That dates the book in some areas (the political discussion) and probably impacts his discussions of the major cities. This isn't a huge detractor. The first time I read the book was 2004 and none of that was notable. Now, however, it calls itself to your attention occasionally. My other criticism is that there is the occasional gratuitous use of curse words. Some are understandable, but many if not most just seem gratuitous and unnecessary. (Hence the 4 instead of 5 stars.)(less)

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Feb 07, 2013 David rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: travel, humor, history, audiobook

Bill Bryson is an excellent author. He brings subjects to life--even subjects that previously had little interest to me. And, this book is a great example of that. Here is a travelogue through Australia. Bryson manages to make every page into a fascinating occasion. He does this by blending the most interesting aspects of sites and people in Australia with a subtle, dry humor that bowls me over.

Bryson ties his book together with two main themes; Australia is a big, big country, full of wonderful...more

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Feb 06, 2013 Gordon rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Being in Australia as I am, this book kind of recommended itself, and I'm already a Bryson fan. It's full of the apt turns of phrase and insightful observations that make him enjoyable to read. I'll justify my relatively low rating by saying that I found his attitude toward Australians effete. There did not seem to be an Australian whom Bryson liked.

That aside, perhaps the strongest parts of the book were the observations on Australian flora and fauna. He really does highlight their unique and...more

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Jan 12, 2013 Mel rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Anyone interessed in Australia or it's history

First off I am an Australian (currently living in France) and thought reading a book showing it from the point of view of a vistor would be comical. I can safetly say he got everything spot on, except that cricket dialogue wasn't quiete right . . .

I highly recomend reading this book not just if you are interested in seeing what he thought of the country but as an overview of the Australian story. I really enjoyed how well researched and accurate all his facts were and how he tied in lots of back...more

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Jan 05, 2013 Jae Smith rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: papisan-travels

This was my first book by Bill Bryson and it certainly will not be my last - in fact, I have 3 more checked out of the library right now. He has a way of making travel and history and random facts so wonderfully interesting. There are 3 parts to this book; the first is loaded with humor that sucks you in and has you laughing out loud at times (the boogey-boarding is great). The second is by far the quietest and most serious of the book, and there was a (brief) moment when it bogged down a tad. H...more

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Nov 28, 2012 David P rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is Bill Bryson's tribute to Australia, a well-crafted package balancing humor and information. The nation he describes reminds one of the early United States, a young country trying to forge its culture and identity. Criss-crossing the continent from Melbourne to Perth, from the Barossa valley to Cairns (plus a visit to Alice Springs and Uluru, aka Ayers Rock), Bryson captures well the essence of Australians, including their salty and irreverent language and their attraction to strong drin...more This is Bill Bryson's tribute to Australia, a well-crafted package balancing humor and information. The nation he describes reminds one of the early United States, a young country trying to forge its culture and identity. Criss-crossing the continent from Melbourne to Perth, from the Barossa valley to Cairns (plus a visit to Alice Springs and Uluru, aka Ayers Rock), Bryson captures well the essence of Australians, including their salty and irreverent language and their attraction to strong drink. If you plan to tour down under, you will still need a good guidebook, but this account comes pretty close too. Take along a copy as essential reading.

Australia's deserts are among the driest on the planet, "sunburned" and more. Bryson makes it clear that Nature here is not just different, but often different in a deadly way: venomous funnel spiders and snakes, and in the water, sharks, deadly sea snakes and box jellyfish whose painful sting (if you survive it) will burn forever in your memory. Add to these salt water crocodiles which dart onto the shore to snatch victims and yet, the greatest peril are still the vast deserts and their bordering outback, where kangaroos and koalas may thrive but you, left alone, may face a hot and dry death. A huge unforgiving country, it still has its beauty spots, forests and striking shorelines. It is after all a continent, big enough for a wide variety of sights, climates and life styles.

Unforgiving it may be, yet archeologists find it has experienced human inhabitants several times longer than the Americas. How they arrived is to Bryson an unsolved mystery. America (supposedly) was reachable by a "land bridge" across the Bering straits when ocean levels dropped during the ice age; but Australia in recent geological times has always been separated by deep ocean, allowing it to develop unique animals and plants. Somehow the ancestors of present "aborigines" must have performed a serious feat of navigation and crossed the Torres strait 60-80,000 years ago.

Viewed up close, the "abos" are not at all subhuman, and their skills in adapting to a harsh environment are still admirable. They were just unable (or unwilling, at least most of them) to adapt to modern literate civilization. Their story reminds one of the American Indians--free but destitute, vulnerable to alcohol, mostly gentle but left out by Australian society. Bryson even tells of a time when the Australian government tried to bridge the gap by forcibly educating children away from their families, in special boarding schools. The attempt failed, and the children ended up fitting into neither their old society nor the new Australian one.

Beside his insider view of the land, Bryson also overviews Australian history, including the many near misses which preceded the continent's "official" discovery by Captain Cook in 1770. Louis de Torres in 1606 crossed the Pacific and by blind luck threaded the Torres straits to the north, narrowly missing the many reefs that adjoin it, while the Dutchman Abel Tasman in 1642 passed to the south and discovered Tasmania. Even before, in 1629, the Dutch "Batavia" with 350 passengers ran aground at some islands near Perth: after a rather bloody mutiny among survivors and a dramatic rescue, two of the mutineers were marooned on Australia's coast, the first Europeans on Australian soil. But 1770 was the real beginning, followed by the first deportation of British prisoners to Sidney in 1787.

Later regular settlers appeared (mainly in the south-west corner), followed by exploration of the dry interior, gold rushes, sheep, rabbits and finally the Japanese attack in 1942. That attack convinced Australians that they were too few to defend their continent, so selective immigration from Europe was encouraged, leading to the current ethnic diversity. Even if you do not plan to visit Australia, this book is a very good introduction to a vigorous young nation, still developing a style of its own.
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Nov 06, 2012 Molly rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: kindle-fire

There were aspects of this book I loved: the anecdotes of frightening creature-encounters, of beaches full of box jellyfish and crocodiles snapping at tourists. There was even mention of an American couple who disappeared while snorkeling, and I believe it's the film Open Water based on their probably death. I loved his paging through museums and used bookshops, the bits of history he conveyed to the reader.

I'm not entirely certain of the motivation behind moments where he'd beat himself miserab...more

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About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.
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Quotes from In a Sunburned Country

“It is not true that the English invented cricket as a way of making all other human endeavors look interesting and lively; that was merely an unintended side effect. ...It is the only sport that incorporates meal breaks. It is the only sport that shares its name with an insect. It is the only sport in which spectators burn as many calories as the players-more if they are moderately restless.” — 44 people liked it

“As the saying goes, it takes all kinds to make the world go around, though perhaps some shouldn't go quite so far around it as others.” — 28 people liked it

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