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I LOVED your golfing
story. Read every word. You're a wonderful writer.
(Peter Bowerman, the Well-Fed Writer)
Big Things rule! ... and the video
of the Airbus is great. (Jim McDonald,
Birmingham, UK)
Having enjoyed reading your
biographical, They
can't take that away from me... I
would love to post your article (for my) course for
seniors entitled Autobiography and Journaling ... and
let them read your article as a good example of what
I call the reader's writer, clearly expressed and easy
to read. (Howell)
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every week, Jennifer, it's never boring and there's always
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Tenerife, Spain)
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help clarify
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USA)
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glasses made my day :) (Edith, Derbyshire, UK)
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your Latin
quote of the week. (Paul, Mexico City, Mexico)
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marionettes are everywhere! Thanks for another great
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course. (Dave Wagner, Sacramento, US)
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County, CANADA)
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NETHERLANDS)
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Read
more testimonials ...
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originally found this site after searching for
clarification on a contentious
point amongst work colleagues. Just had to look at old
issues and now look forward to Fridays (Juliet Wallace,
Manchester, ENGLAND)
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Bill Bryson
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"Remember how in
the '50s everything was good for you?
"Cigarettes?
Healthful. Advertisements, often featuring doctors, said smoking soothed jangled
nerves and sharpened minds.
"X-rays,"
Bryson remembers, "were so benign that shoe stores installed special
machines that used them to measure foot sizes."
"The lives of
children were," Bryson remembers, "unsupervised, unregulated and
robustly physical."
"Kids were
always outdoors -- I knew kids who were pushed out the door at 8 in the morning
and not allowed back in until 5 unless they were on fire or actively
bleeding."
Reminisce with Bill
Bryson's memoir of growing up in the '50s, when downtown department stores had
white-gloved operators in the elevators and pneumatic tubes carrying money and
receipts to and from cashiers ...
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| Bryson's attempt to do what we'd all
love to do ... understand everything that's happened from the Big Bang to the
rise of civilisation! |
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The history of the English language
... if you love finding out where we get all our words from you'll love this!
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"Bill Bryson writes of his exploits in Australia,
where A-bombs go off unnoticed, prime ministers disappear into the surf, and
cheery citizens coexist with the world's deadliest creatures: toxic
caterpillars, aggressive seashells, crocodiles, sharks, snakes, and the
deadliest of them all, the dreaded box jellyfish. And that's just the beginning,
as Bryson treks through sun-baked deserts and up endless coastlines,
crisscrossing the "under-discovered" Down Under in search of all
things interesting.
"Bryson, who could make a pile of dirt
compelling--and yes, Australia is mostly dirt--finds no shortage of
curiosities. When he isn't dodging Portuguese man-of-wars or considering the
virtues of the remarkable platypus, he visits southwest Gippsland, home of the
world's largest earthworms (up to 12 feet in length). He discovers that
Australia, which began nationhood as a prison, contains the longest straight
stretch of railroad track in the world (297 miles), as well as the world's
largest monolith (the majestic Uluru) and largest living thing (the Great
Barrier Reef). He finds ridiculous place names: "Mullumbimby Ewylamartup,
Jiggalong, and the supremely satisfying Tittybong," and manages to catch a
cricket game on the radio, which is like:
"listening to two men sitting in a rowboat on a
large, placid lake on a day when the fish aren't biting; it's like having a
nap without losing consciousness. It actually helps not to know quite what's
going on. In such a rarefied world of contentment and inactivity,
comprehension would become a distraction."
"You see," Bryson observes,
"Australia is an interesting place. It truly is. And that really is all I'm
saying." Of course, Bryson--who is as much a travel writer here as a
humorist, naturalist, and historian--says much more, and does so with generous
amounts of wit and hilarity. Australia may be "mostly empty and a long way
away," but it's a little closer now. --Rob McDonald
"Australia is a country that exists on a vast
scale. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent
that is also a country. Despite being the most desiccated, infertile, and
climatically aggressive of all inhabited continents, it teems with life.
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"In
fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than
anywhere else: sharks, crocodiles, the ten most deadly poisonous snakes on the
planet, fluffy yet toxic caterpillars, seashells that actually attack you, and
the unbelievable box jellyfish (don't ask). The dangerous riptides of the sea
and the sun-baked wastes of the outback both lie in wait for the unwary. It's
one tough country.
Are you eligible to work in Australia? Click here to find out.
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"Bill Bryson adores it, of course, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride
far beyond the beaten tourist path. Here is a place where interesting things
happen all the time, from a Prime Minister lost--yes, lost--while swimming at
sea to Japanese cult members who may have set off an atomic bomb (sic) entirely
unnoticed on their 500,000-acre property in the great western desert.
"Wherever he goes (and Bryson goes just about everywhere) he finds Australians
who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging--the beaming products of
a land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine. On occasion
the Aborigines, a remote and mysterious race with a tragic history, make a
haunting appearance in this book. But by and large Australia is an immense and
fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide. Published
just in time for the 2000 Olympics in Sydney, Down
Under / In a Sunburned Country
offers the best of all possible introductions to what may well be the best of
all possible nations. Even with those jellyfish."
Australian Visa advice and free assessment online
Read more about Australia in the newsletter Archives.
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