I've Become a Bill Bryson Groupie!

Last month, on a whim, I picked up my first Bill Bryson book from my local library. He'd been kind of on my radar since my old Story House days, but I'd never read anything he'd written. Now I have two books under my belt and I'll be adding more to my library queue. Here's why!

Bill Bryson primarily writes travel books (though I'm right now reading a book he wrote about his 1950s childhood in Iowa, and he's done other books on language), and since I can be almost preoccupied with all of the traveling I never get to do I guess it was only a matter of time before we hooked up, so to speak.

Now, these are not your average travel books, laying out specific destinations and telling you which are the better hotels. These are the ramblings of a man who is fortunate enough to get paid to travel the globe, and his stories of these trips are hilarious! I wish I'd found out about Bryson much earlier in my life so I could've been his traveling buddy.

I just finished In A Sunburned Country, about several trips he made to Australia. Bryson really gives you the flavor of the country and the people, particularly since it's one of his favorite destinations. There was a mixture of history, culture and science that really was fascinating and told me more about Australia than I ever knew. Plus this guy is just funny! I'd personally like to know more about his wife, who stays home with their children while he rams around Europe and Australia, sometimes gone for a month or more at a time.

Anyway, if you haven't read any Bill Bryson, you really should. This is good stuff, and now I must go and add more of his work to my library queue before I finish the next book!