Bill Bryson Books

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Bill Bryson is a famous author whose literary works are based mostly on travel, science and the English language. Bill was born as William McGuire Bryson on 12th December, 1951. His native town is Des Moines in Iowa, the United States of America. His mother, Agnes Mary, was of Irish descent while his father worked as a sports journalist. Bill had two siblings: an elder brother named Michael and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth. He is married to Cynthia Billen, a nurse he met at Holloway Sanatorium where he was working in 1973. Together, they have four children. The youngest of them all is Samuel, and he was born in 1990.

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Order of Bill Bryson History Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 Icons of England 2008 Description / Buy
2 At Home: A Short History of Private Life 2010 Description / Buy
3 One Summer: America, 1927 2013 Description / Buy

Order of Bill Bryson Language Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words 1984 Description / Buy
2 The Mother Tongue 1990 Description / Buy
3 Made in America 1994 Description / Buy
4 Bryson's Dictionary for Writers and Editors 2008 Description / Buy

Order of Bill Bryson Non-Fiction Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid: A Memoir 2006 Description / Buy
2 Shakespeare 2007 Description / Buy
3 The Secret History of Christmas 2022 Description / Buy

Order of Bill Bryson Science Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 A Short History of Nearly Everything 2003 Description / Buy
2 A Really Short History of Nearly Everything 2004 Description / Buy
3 Seeing Further 2010 Description / Buy
4 The Body 2019 Description / Buy

Order of Bill Bryson Travel Books with Christopher Lloyd, Jennifer Jenkins, David Bellamy, Robin Hanbury-Tenbison, Anna Parord

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Palace Under the Alps 1985 Description / Buy
2 The Lost Continent 1989 Description / Buy
3 Neither Here nor There 1992 Description / Buy
4 Notes from a Small Island 1995 Description / Buy
5 A Walk in the Woods 1997 Description / Buy
6 I'm a Stranger Here Myself / Notes from a Big Country 1998 Description / Buy
7 The English Landscape: Its Character and Diversity ( With: Marina Warner, Christopher Lloyd, Jennifer Jenkins, David Bellamy, Robin Hanbury-Tenbison, Anna Parord) 2000 Description / Buy
8 In a Sunburned Country / Down Under 2000 Description / Buy
9 Bill Bryson's African Diary 2002 Description / Buy
10 The Road to Little Dribbling 2015 Description / Buy

Order of Bill Bryson Short Story Collections

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection 2023 Description / Buy

Order of Eminent Lives Series

# Read Title Published Details
1 Muhammad: A Prophet for Our Time ( By: Karen Armstrong) 1991 Description / Buy
2 Ulysses S. Grant: The Unlikely Hero ( By: Michael Korda) 2004 Description / Buy
3 George Balanchine ( By: Robert Gottlieb) 2004 Description / Buy
4 Beethoven ( By: Edmund Morris) 2005 Description / Buy
5 Thomas Jefferson ( By: Christopher Hitchens) 2005 Description / Buy
6 Caravaggio ( By: Francine Prose) 2005 Description / Buy
7 Alexander the Great ( By: Norman F. Cantor) 2005 Description / Buy
8 Freud ( By: Peter D. Kramer) 2006 Description / Buy
9 Francis Crick ( By: Matt Ridley) 2006 Description / Buy
10 Alexis de Tocqueville ( By: Joseph Epstein) 2006 Description / Buy
11 Shakespeare 2007 Description / Buy
12 Machiavelli ( By: Ross King) 2007 Description / Buy
13 George Washington ( By: Paul Johnson) 2009 Description / Buy

Order of Marina Warner Travel Books

# Read Title Published Details
1 The English Landscape: Its Character and Diversity ( With: Marina Warner, Christopher Lloyd, Jennifer Jenkins, David Bellamy, Robin Hanbury-Tenbison, Anna Parord) 2000 Description / Buy
2 Myth and Landscape (Short Story) ( By: Marina Warner, Ibrahim al-Koni, David Parker) 2015 Description / Buy

Order of The Best American: Travel Writing

# Read Title Published Details
1 The Best American Travel Writing 2011 ( By: Sloane Crosley) 2011 Description / Buy
2 The Best American Travel Writing 2012 ( By: Jason Wilson) 2012 Description / Buy
3 The Best American Travel Writing 2013 ( By: Jason Wilson) 2013 Description / Buy
4 The Best American Travel Writing 2014 ( By: Jason Wilson) 2014 Description / Buy
5 The Best American Travel Writing 2015 ( By: Jason Wilson) 2015 Description / Buy
6 The Best American Travel Writing 2016 2016 Description / Buy
7 The Best American Travel Writing 2017 ( By: Jason Wilson, Lauren Collins) 2017 Description / Buy
8 The Best American Travel Writing 2018 ( By: Cheryl Strayed) 2018 Description / Buy
9 The Best American Travel Writing 2019 ( By: Jason Wilson) 2019 Description / Buy
10 The Best American Travel Writing 2020 ( By: Robert Macfarlane) 2020 Description / Buy
11 The Best American Travel Writing 2021 ( By: Padma Lakshmi) 2021 Description / Buy

Bill Bryson Anthologies

# Read Title Published Details
1 Great Baseball Stories 1990 Description / Buy
2 The Astronomy Book 2012 Description / Buy
3 Dear NHS 2020 Description / Buy
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Bill spent much of his adult life in Britain, despite being an American native. Some of his books tell of his experiences in Britain in impressive detail.

From a tender age, Bill had a curiosity that could simply not be satisfied. In fact, he dropped out of Drake University just so he could explore England. It is this holy curiosity that has perhaps made him stand out as one of the best authors of scientific books, which are characterized by simplicity and conciseness. He says that he was inspired to write scientific books in simple, every- day language, because such books were hard to come by. For him, it always seemed like those who wrote scientific material hid the beauty of science behind a mass of difficult words, which made science seem very boring.

Apart from scientific books, Bill has also written a number of books on travel, detailing his journeys and hikes across England and the United States. Bryson has also written about the history of the English language. The most notable books in this genre are The Mother Tongue and Made in America.

While working as a journalist in the United Kingdom, Bryson worked his way through the ranks, finally becoming the deputy national news editor for the business section of The Times. However, Bryson left the role in the late ’80s. After leaving the high pressure role of editor, Bill Brydon turned his hand to more freelance writing,doing it independently for various publications. In 1995, he returned to the United States, and he kept up his writing, doing a column about returning to America after spending almost two decades in the United Kingdom. The columns he wrote were to be the basis for his 1999 Book, Notes From A Big Country (or as it was known in the United States, I’m A Stranger Here Myself).

Notes From A Big Coutry was not the first book Bryson had published however. In fact, his first book was published a decade before, and was also in the travel genre, just like Notes From A Big Country, and it was entitled The Palace Under the Alps and Over 200 Other Unusual, Unspoiled and Infrequently Visited Spots in 16 European Countries.

Bryon’s work is mostly in the genre of travel, and his books tend to touch on being a fish out of water, such as Notes From A Small Island, and Notes From A Big Country, but he also touches on other sides of travel, looking at small-town America in The Lost Continent, and also looking at Australia in Down Under.

Outside of his travel writing, Bill Bryson’s most famous book is probably A Short History of Nearly Everything, where he looks at the beginning of the world, and then almost everything associated with it. It’s is a great piece of writing that makes science more accessible to the general public, and is eye-opening in both its simplicity and how it conveys so much information.

Bill Bryson Awards

Bill Bryson has received numerous awards in recognition of the many noble causes he supports, especially through his books. His book, A Short History of Nearly Everything, received critical global acclaim and won two different awards. In 2004, it won the Aventis award while in 2005 it won the Descartes Prize for science communication. It was also shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize in the same year. Some of other prestigious prizes that Bryson has won include the President’s Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry and the James Joyce Award by the Literary and Historical Society of University College Dublin. Bill also served as chancellor for the University of Durham between 2005 and 2011.

Bill Bryson Books Made Into Movies/TV

One of Bill’s books, A Walk in The Woods, has been adapted into a movie, starring Robert Redford as Bill Bryson and Nick Nolte portraying Bill’s friend and partner in the hike, Stephen Katz. Another of his books, Notes from a Small Island, was also made into a series.

Best Bill Bryson Books

A Short History of Almost Everything is arguably Bill Bryson’s best book, judging from public reception and the number of awards it has won. The book aims at explaining recent scientific developments to adults in plain and simple language, and in an engaging and enthusiastic manner. It is divided into five chapters. The first tries to explain the origin of the earth using the Big Bang Theory, while the second explores the size, shape and weight of the earth. Here, Bryson explains in simple words how the great geologist, Henry Cavendish used a delicate apparatus to accurately measure the weight of the world. The third chapter is dedicated to the theory of relativity and quantum physics, while the fourth explores the dangers that the earth faces every day, such as the possibility of a meteor hitting the earth several times a week, or the possibility of a super volcano occurring at any time, and at any place on the earth.

Another remarkable book by Bill Bryson is A Walk in The Woods. This book tells in an interesting way Bill’s attempt to hike on the world’s longest hiking trail, the Appalachian Trail. The trail is extremely long; it is nearly 2100 miles long, running all the way from Georgia to Maine. Bryson challenged himself to go all the way on foot, but he didn’t succeed. He was accompanied on this journey by his old friend and a recovering alcoholic, Stephen Katz. The story is told in an enchanting and attention- grabbing way that keeps readers turning the pages.

Bill’s other great book entitled Notes from a Small Island tells of the lives of the people in the island of Great Britain. It is because of this exceptionally well- authored book that Bill was made commissioner for English Heritage.

When Does The Next Bill Bryson book come out?

Bill Bryson doesn't seem to have an upcoming book. Their newest book is The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection and was released on April, 6th 2023. It is the newest book in the Bill Bryson Short Story Collections.

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