A very entertaining tour of Australia. I love Bill Bryson's sense of humor. Makes me want to go to Australia ... on second thought, maybe not. Bryson devotes many pages to describing all sorts of deadly and/or pain inducing fauna and flora in great detail. ( )

Good Ol' Aussie Sense Of Hunor: Bryson really captures the essence of Australia by detailing his experiences and interactions in different places throughout the country. Using humor or strange conversations, he conveys the attitude and friendly personalities of the the Aussies. While spending long passages describing too many historical details that he might only find interesting, he dives deep into the culture and history of a country most people know nothing about. Seeing as I just moved here, this introduction was perfect to welcoming me here. :)

As a caveat, I have a disclaimer to make on this one, in that I am an expat American, and have been here for (at the time of this writing ) about 3 years now, so I have had a big advantage in exposure to Australian than Bill has. I wished I would have had the book before going through Young, as I would have had to try finding the pet food/porn s tore -Young NSW is basically one street with shops out in the middle of nowhere (well ok, in the same manner that Dorothy's place in Kansas wasn't near anything - to anyone but Dorothy)...

He did miss some nice stories that I am sure he could have used ( for example, Benalla Victoria has a plaque in front of an old saddler's shop where Ned Kelly was apprehended by the law (Benalla is not far from Glen Rowan)... by the law enforcement officer securing Mr Kelly's -well, how do you say it politely ? I suppose the best way is to call it a place where a male can be incapacitated.

Bill also makes the drive from Adelaide to Melbourne seem like breeze ... and you sort of lose sight of just how vast a continent Australia really is (but I suppose that is because most people don't do road trips here). It is something over 10 or 11 hours if I've been told accurately (and it only looks a couple of inches away on a map -go figure).

One particular (for me) poignant part is where Bill describes the area where his friends lived outside of Melbourne, of which I am pretty sure was dead center in last year's horrific bushfires that tore through Victoria. I don't know that he touched on the significance of fires as they are to the Australian landscape; they are every bit a part of this country as tornado alley is to the middle part of the US (another place where I used to live).

There are so many things that one can write about Australia; Bryson's book is great, it is cheeky, and there are even times where you can tell he still has a holiday visit mentality... I started reading this book before I left the US; but really it held so much more relevance after travelling around here. You know one of the things I've heard is that people visiting Oz expect that they'll find Kangaroos hopping down the streets- and the irony is, I actually did, and it obeyed a yield sign and then hung a right before bouncing into the bush ... go figure.

The first thing that I would suggest to readers and potential readers -is to divorce any preconceived notions related to Crocodile Dundee, and Steve Irwin; this place is as complex as it is vast. ( )

This was yet another highly enjoyable example of Bryson's travel writing. I learned all kinds of interesting details about Australia, especially in places I had not heard of and would probably not think to visit should I ever get the chance to go 'down under.' A good dose of history and politics where appropriate are thrown in too which I liked. One example being all the failed attempts to cross much of the interior deserts. Great little volume that I look forward to reading again in the future. ( )

Very good, but not as funny as "Notes from..." Several laugh out loud parts, though. Had a lot of good history and information about Australia. Could have done without the emphasis on evolution. ( )

classic Bryson - I cried with laughter ( )

funny, makes me want to travel more even if alone

A pretty good read about that country down under. The author takes you on a journey around the continent as well as into its past, and does so with a decent helping of satire and irony. I'm looking forward to reading more of this author's works. ( )

Very funny and informative. ( )

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 really undiscovered island of Australia and his impressions of what he sees and who he meets. There is history, wonderfully funny and horribly gruesome and sad stories, lodging and traveling tips and a long list of places there that I really now want to see. His wit and sarcastic humor is what did it for me. I will look for more of his books and hope that he goes on more journeys to share with his reading audience. ( )

Bryson never lets the reader down, fun fast read, hated to put it down!

Another enjoyable Bryson book. I place this somewhere between Thunderbolt Kid (my second favorite up to this point) and Neither Here Nor There. I liked this actually MUCH better than the latter book - more humor more distance covered I suppose...and I suppose the fact that there were more things around to threaten his life just makes for a funnier book. ( )

Bill Bryson is a travel writer and a humorist. This book about his travels in Australia is very informative and very funny. The facts that he presents are interesting, because they are unique from other travel books. He provides tidbits about the history, politics, environment, people, and culture of Australia and many of them are little-known facts. I read this right before I took a trip to Australia and it was really helpful. Don't think you have to go to Australia to enjoy this book, because it definitely stands alone. ( )

My newly discovered favourite author. He's funny, and his descriptions are great. loved the detail in his observations, and he made me laugh out loud on the tram. ( )

Bryson applieshis humor to Australia. ( )

I've never been to Australia so I loved to hear Bill's version of it - he is like Tigger bouncing round, enjoying everything. A really good read. ( )

another fun book from B. Bryson, this time about traveling downunder. He makes all the mistakes a typical traveler makes and manages his way out. ( )

Bill Brysons books range from funny to hysterical. This is laugh out loud funny, detailing his trip across Australia. He also fills his book with facts, like how Australia is home to something like 80% of the worlds deadliest animals then lunches into a funny anecdote about one of his encounters with some of them. ( )

Read this one a couple of times, the first immediately after purchasing it in Australia -- Target in Canberra in April 2002, and enjoy it. I'd never read Bryson before and it was an interesting look at a country I'd gotten only a taste of. In 2005 I re-read it and picked up more having seen more of the country. ( )

Bill Bryson is at his hilarious best when he writes travel memoirs, and this is, in my opinion, one of his funniest. This is the kind of book where you stop every few pages, in tears, and read aloud a passage to whomever happens to be in the room so that they can share in the hilarity. In this book, Bryson explores Australia, a country where walking in your backyard is likely to kill you (between the poisonous spiders, snakes, and jellyfish, not to mention the crocs, sharks, and ever popular koalas -- watch out, they bite -- you really can't move in Australia without the likelihood of being eaten, apparently), but the people are crazy enough not to mind. I'm not sure that it made me want to go to Australia (I'm sorry, but how many deadly spiders was that again?) but it definitely made me long for the kind of madcap camaraderie that apparently grows when one attempts to drive across the Australian outback for fun. Highly recommended. Man, that Bryson is a stitch. :D

Fun ( )

Wonderful, Excellent, Fantastic. I have journeyed to Australia a half-dozen times with Bryson by reading this book and listening to it on tape (highly recommended). Each time I take away something new--an unbelievable fact about this country's history, a memory of a quirky local--but I always am left with a (sun)burning desire to visit the country in real life and see for myself. ( )

Another guffaw-laden travel book from Bryson, who deals with Australia in the same irreverent manner as he has tackled America and Britain. For all the humor, though, this book passes my travel-book test; after reading it, I wanted to book the next flight to Sydney. ( )

I adore Bryson. He is so witty and adventurous, and unfailingly bumbling. As well as being amusing, I learned quite a bit about Australia. I had never given much thought to the fact that we really don't hear a lot of news from it. A great read. I want to go to Australia. ( )

Bill Bryson is a very readable man. I read "Notes From a Small Country" for my first semester of Year 12 English (thank you, slipping standards of Western Australian public education) and quite enjoyed it. I also flicked through some of the early chapters of "A Walk In The Woods" in my university library. For somebody approaching the golden years he has a great sense of humour, and a knack for weaving random bits of fact and trivia into otherwise sequential travel narratives.

In "Down Under" (also published as "In A Sunburnt Country") Bryson travels across a decent cross-section of Australia, taking in Sydney, Melbourne, the Queensland Coast, the northern territory and some good chunks of WA. He is a middle-aged academic, mind you, and therefore his tours are generally geared towards the museum side of things; for example, he visits Shark Bay nor for its whale sharks or beautiful ocean or breathtaking landscape, but rather for its stromatolites, which are essentially living fossils. He also has a tendency to include a large amount of anectodes from motels, roadside stops and the like. While this can often be quite amusing...

"And how did you enjoy your stay, sir?" he asked smoothly.
"It was singularly execrable," I replied.
"Oh, excellent," he purred, taking my card.
"In fact, I would go so far as to say that the principal value of a stay in this establishment is that it is bound to make all subsequent service-related experiences seem, in comparison, refreshing."
"Well, we hope you'll come again."
"I would sooner have bowel surgery in the woods with a stick."

...it also bogs down the pacing and gives a frustrating sense of wasting time. On the same page that Bryson breathlessly tells you there's so much to see in Australia, he complains about his inability to find a decent restaurant in a fly-speck town on the side of a highway.

Bryson is at his strongest when recounting Australian history, throwing in odd bits and pieces whenever appropriate, providing a quick guide to basic facts with plenty of wit and humour. ("Apart from founding Sydney, [Arthur Philip] had one other notable achievement. In 1814 he managed to die by falling from a wheelchair and out of an upstairs window.") Somebody with absolutely no knowledge of Australia could read this book (and it's an easy, entertaining read) and come away with a fairly decent understanding of Australia's place in the world and what we are essentially like. I do enjoy reading what foreigners have to say about us (mostly because it's always positive), and Bryson seems to have the correct impression. One of the major points he reiterates throughout the book is that Australia is curiously ignored on a global scale, of which we're well aware; half-proud of and half-annoyed by.

Minor irritants include Bryson's insistence on perpetuating the myth that Australia is crawling with deadly creatures, and his occassional lack of fact-checking. Well, the only thing I noticed regarding that was his Aum Shinrikyo nuke story in the early pages, which is patently untrue. I don't know whether he just made it up or fell for a bartender's tall tale or what, but jeez, do a little background research. These are small annoyances, however, and on the whole I enjoyed this book quite a lot. Down Under is a reccomended read for anyone with a passing interest in learning more about my perennially overlooked nation. ( )