Rating: 
Summary: In A Sunburned Country this author has some fun & insights!
Review: I'd not read a Bill Bryson book before so as I began his trek around & across Australia, I found myself chortling & enchanted at this author's mischievous sense of the absurd. This book is packed with historical, geological, botanical, biological & unusual travelogue detail of his adventures Down Under.He is a keen observer of culture & cupidity. Whether he's relaxing in Alice Springs with a brew, watching the white Saturday world mill before him, into which stumble 20th Century Aborigines. This author puts down his newspaper & ponders on the history of Australia's First People; of the incoming European settlers' morals with regard to these elusive inhabitants who had survived, quite nicely thank you, for thousands of years only to be devastated by the plague of prejudice. Or whether he's off on a train to Western Australia or enchanted by a lovely clean city or dabbling in the waters of New South Wales. This author dwells upon the peculiarity that Australia is home to more hair-raising critters of the deadly kind than anywhere else around this globe. With all his research, Bill Bryson is still not sure why. Few details escape this intrepid traveler; he's especially good when illuminating the early sorties into the forbidding interior which, because he crisscrosses it a few times himself, he describes in bright, busy visions & has definitely wetted my appetite for a gander at Down Under. For my full review do check out: [my website].
Rating: 
Summary: An Aussies look at an Americans trip downunder
Review: Whilst I was in New York the other day a friend gave me this book.That is strange I thought( I am an Australian, why would someone want to give me a book about Australia ). I read it on the plane on the way home - well what else is there to do when flying for 20 hours. I was surprised - Bill Bryson told me things about my own country , some of which I didn't know & a lot which I take for granted but which I never understood visitors to this Island/continent/country may not know about. For anyone planning to visit AussieLand I thoroughly recommend this book and also to Australians to get a visitors perspective of our great land.
Rating:
Summary: Vintage Bryson - Let the Reader Beware!
Review: Being an avid Bryson fan, I wanted to chime in with those warning readers to be careful with Bryson in public places -- reading the description of his jet-lagged snooze while being shown around Sydney by a publishers rep, I was convulsed with one of those omigod-I-can't-stop bellyachers that left me in almost as embarrassing a position as Bryson had been in. Listening to another book (I'm a Stranger Here Myself, I think) while driving from LA to SF, my son and I were laughing so hard that I missed the fork in the highway and wound up in Bakersfield, where I did not want to be. Sunburned is a great book -- very interesting and entertaining -- but should definitely come with a warning label!
Rating:
Summary: In a Sunburned Country
Review: An hilarious, laugh-out-loud, mascara-running-down-the-cheeks, homesick-making read. I (along with at least six fellow passengers en-route to LA, recently) thoroughly enjoyed every sunburnt, red-dust, blue-bottle-filled page of this book - gross exaggerations and all - once I had recovered from my confusion and disappointment regarding the misquote on the very first page - Dorothea MacKellar wrote 'Of droughts and flooding rains' not 'flooding plains', but I'm sure you've already been reprimanded a thousand times, Bill. Blame your proof-readers. Obviously, they weren't Aussies.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring and self indulgent
Review: Where has the earlier Bill Bryson gone? While I found "Notes from a small island" amusing and light hearted, and "I'm a stranger here myself" a well written collection of anecdotes, I've had to put this book down apart 1/3 way through. Gone is most of the humor and light style of his earlier work. This book seems intent on rehashing the same points time and again, and on giving a cultural and historical lecture. I definitely do not recommend this book.
Rating:
Summary: Poor Cartography
Review: As a lover of travel and travel books and a fan of Bill Bryson's writing style, I thoroughly enjoyed this book, except for one irritating omission. Like most Americans, I am not that familiar with the geography of Australia and kept wondering exactly where Adelaide or Perth are located in relation to other Australian cities. The small sectional maps presented at the front of the book are poorly drawn and inadequate for one who wants to see an overall view of Australia and how the locations Bryson writes about relate geographically to each other. Even though one of the four small maps endeavors to show the entire country, it seems to be skewed and out of scale. In Paul Theroux's similar travelogue THE KINGDOM BY THE SEA, the publishers thoughtfully included an overall map of Great Britain to scale so the reader could follow Theroux's travels in toto. This book would have been greatly enhanced by a similar treatment of the Australian continent.
Rating:
Summary: Humorous look at Land Down Under
Review: This is a humorous travelog about Australia. Bryson provides many interesting stories about various parts of the land. It is only missing an overall theme or arc to bring the whole book together. Worth reading if you have any interest in Australia.
Rating: 
Summary: The Vast Baren Desert
Review: Bill Bryson's In a Sunburned Country was of the beaten path for Bryson in many ways. Bryson's previous writings have mush character and gave a good chuckle. In a Sunburned Country however not only did he make me laugh but I also acquired much knowledge about Australians reflected on some of his more personal experiences. Bryson has many marvelous traits and one of my favorite was they way he made me grin. He has a distinct outlook on life that makes him a great writer. On of his many experiences that made me smile was looking at the map of Australia and finds peculiar names of cities. He lists a few like Wee Waa, Jiggalong, and as he describes the supremely satisfying Tittybong. Bryson made me reflect on some of his experiences. Bryson is told that Aboriginal is a problem in Australia and he has some intrusting experiences with them. They reminded me of the way African Americans are treated here in the US. He also learns Australia has some of the most looked over affairs. The New York Times only published 20 articles on Australia most were about the Sydney games. Then he compared Australia to Peru, which had whopping 120 articles. The countries Prime Minister was swept into the ocean and never found again. The terrorist group Aum Shinkrio was thought to have set of a nuclear bomb on it 500,000 acre property without the entire country noticing. The sight is now being tested for the remains. To sum In a Sunburned County it was a tale that is never to be missed by anyone because of all it's great qualities.
Rating:
Summary: even aussies love it!
Review: We Australians are a pretty insecure lot, we are always very wary of how our country is being portrayed overseas. I personally got up late at night during the Olympics to see what the 'NBC Today Show' coverage from Sydney was like. Naturally when I heard that Bill Bryson's 'Sunburned Country' was doing well overseas I had to see what it had to say. I must say I thoroughly enjoyed the read and oftentimes was bursting with pride (as well as laughter) at what Bryson wrote. Very rarely does anyone really get inside this country and tell people what it is all about - Bryson does it in this book. We get sick of the constant Aussie steriotypes being sent overseas - Kangaroos and Crockodile Dundee. Bryson goes beyond this and really digs deep into the country, its people, its history, and its culture.
Rating:
Summary: Pleasantly SUNBURNED!!!!
Review: Bryson has done again. Yet, another enjoyable comical/historical essay writen by a travel liturature genious. In this book bryson talkes about Australia from top to bottom. From land to sea and back again. He doesnt leave out a thing, he even hits upon the tender subjects revolving around the horrible treatment the aborigines have recieved over the years, and still ocassionally recieve yet today.And even while talking of such a serious subject as racism he still manages to make this an extremly funny and enlightening romp threw a sunburned country. In short I highly recomend this book. P.S. I am not a historian, nor am I a human rights activist I just simply enjoyed this book verry much.
| 
