Essays on Bill Bryson

8 December 1951

Author

Travel, Science

8 December 1951 (age 70)

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson is an American–British author of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science.

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 served as the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011. 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.

In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, he chronicled a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. It was followed by Neither Here Nor There, an account of his first trip around Europe. Other travel books include the massive bestseller Notes From a Small Island, which won the 2003 World Book Day National Poll to find the book which best represented modern England, followed by A Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Big Country and Down Under.

“There are three stages in scientific discovery. First, people deny that it is true, then they deny that it is important; finally they credit the wrong person.”
“I mused for a few moments on the question of which was worse, to lead a life so boring that you are easily enchanted, or a life so full of stimulus that you are easily bored.”
“Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.”