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In a Sunburned Country

In a Sunburned Country

List Price: $49.95
Your Price: $32.97
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: G'DAY Austrailia!
Review: The witty Mr. Bryson brings the outback of Australia to one's living room and you will no doubt enjoy the privilege. His always fresh outlook on people, places and things is particularly charming and by the end of this book, you will come away having laughed, and, most importantly, learned. A truly informative work... made me want to go there.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Very informative and quite funny
Review: Bill Bryson has an excellent way with words, especially with his descriptive writing. For a travel writer, I suppose this is a must. He's also a humorist, and I laughed out loud on at least a half a dozen occasions while enjoying his adventures down under. Particularly amusing were his descriptions of a Cricket match, of a particularly bad hotel in Darwin and and of a drunken night in the Outback. He also gives a fine overall view of Austrailia, of which he covered much, but alas not nearly as much as he wanted. Though some might gripe that he spends too much time ruminating over the poisonous wildlife and looking for a cold beer, overall this is an exceptionally fun book to read. He includes many historical facts about Australia and even devotes some space to the unfortunate condition of the Aborigines. But not too much to spoil the fun. Bryson's travel writings remind me of an apolitical P.J. O'Rourke, and for that he's worth a read.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Excellent. Excellent. Excellet.
Review: This was a great summer read. Bryson is witting, engrossing, and fun. He has the ability to make any topic supremely interesting. I never thought I'd ever pick up a book on Australia. Now, I'd like to visit.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Something Missing
Review: The book is readable, breezy, and has some interesting insights into history (and commentary on Australian historians - the jibe about Manning Clark was a ripper) but.....there's something missing. In my view, too much "ooing" and "aahing" about the flora and fauna and too little attention to providing some Bryson insight into the people and lifestyle. There are parts of Brysons's previous books which leave you laughing but also shaking your head in wonder at the accuracy of his insights - "Notes from a Small Island" is a stand-out in that regard. That was what I was hoping to find in this book. I was disappointed that it was not there. Perhaps, you tried to cover too much ground, Bill.

For all that, the research is impeccable and Bryson's feel for the landscape shines through. If you are a botanist or a zoologist, you'd give it 5 stars. For me, 3 stars , for a solid effort but played and missed outside off-stump a few times before being caught behind.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Bill Bryson Down Under...At Last!
Review: Not as uproariously funny as A Walk In the Woods, and surprizingly more gentle than his previous looks at his home country, the United States. Whether he has mellowed with age or just genuinely likes Australians, he shows much more inclination to "suffer fools lightly" in this book, and even to enjoy their company.

Most of all I thought Bryson did an excellent job of involving the reader in the delight of discovering this vast, unique and mostly unknown continent/country/island. I really felt that I was experiencing the trip with him. As one who has always wanted to see Australia, I felt I had finally been there, but it only wetted my appetite to "see" more.

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Mixed reviews from this reader
Review: When Bill Bryson's newest book was published, I had been home from my 5 month semester abroad in Australia for almost as long. Still achingly missing a country I had come to love and feel at home in, I eagerly ran to the bookstore to buy Bryson's book.

Yes, the book is overall entertaining and pretty much witty; it's easy to read and a little hard to put down. But for the most part, i was disappointed. Occasionally, I would even find myself thinking, "I could have written this book and done Australia more justice!"

Australia is a spectacular, wonderful, welcoming, enchanting country. As if anyone could have any doubt about that after listening to Bryson effuse for 300 pages. Perhaps some will find the fact that he sings the Lucky Country's praises page after page grating; for me, I felt I had found someone with whom I could sympathize about missing the place!

However, for all his accolades, Bryson seems to only brush the surface of a country rich in history, landscape, and experiences waiting to be had. He spends only ONE DAY at one of Australia's most recognizable landmarks, Uluru, the giant monolith; he is too much of a sissy to even GO UNDER WATER at the Great Barrier Reef; he misses out on the beauty and home-i-ness of Adelaide (my home away from home!); he doesn't see an opera at the world famous Opera House; and he doesn't even VISIT Tasmania, a place almost too beautiful and wild to put into words.

Having lived in Australia for those 5 months, and having traveled extensively, I was looking for something to aleviate the sadness of having had to come "home" from a place I had become so attached to. I wanted something to evoke a vivid trip down memory lane. What I found did not live up to those expectations, and I suspect for those like me, the feeling will be the same. And for those of you who have yet to visit Australia, there's more out there than Bryson relays; it's better than the book.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: "In a Sunburned Country" is an Australian gem
Review: Bill Bryson's work "In a Sunburned Country" won't disappoint readers who enjoyed "A Walk in the Woods." While words like "bewildering," "antipodean," and "unforgiving" may appear a few too many times for some, this book is nonetheless entertaining and wittily written. Readers follow Bryson through his escapades and encounters across the Lucky Country -- including a hilariously ill-fated attempt at boogy boarding in Bondi and several run-ins with more than colorful locals. The book combines a fun blend of travels and Australian history, not at all dry or text-bookish. For those who have traveled in Australia, "In a Sunburned Country" evokes a nostalgia all too enjoyable to revel in; for those who have never visited, I guarantee you will walk away with an overwhelming desire to go.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Charming, informative and full of great humor
Review: I am a huge Bill Bryson fan and have just finished "In a Sunburned Country", which was absolutely marvelous. We visited Australia 12 years ago (during their Bicentennial) and I really loved how his imagery and amusing anecdotes brought back to life the experiences and emotions we had on our trip. We spend most of our visit (like he did on his) alternating between sheer awe of the other-worldly scenery and numb fear of a too-close encounter with one of the countless venomous or toothy native creatures. He captured the enchantment of that strange and distant land perfectly and made me laugh heartily at many of his self-deprecating and witty stories (I thought the book was almost as humorous as his early travel books). I'm ready to go back Down Under and see what I haven't seen, thanks to the incomparable Mr. Bryson.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: One of the best BB's I've read!
Review: I have to say that I thoroughly enjoyed this book. I've read most of Bill Bryson's work and found this one to be a perfect balance of humor and information. A few of his others seemed to slip into TOO much detail (A Walk in the Woods for instance was VERY dry in places!) "Down Under" (as it's called in Aussie!) kept my interest from start to finish and left me wanting to read more! I especially enjoyed it because I have some very special friends who live there and tell me all about life in "Oz" and it sounds just like this book. "Down Under" has encouraged me greatly to finally venture over there (as they've been asking me to do for years now!) and see it for myself! (Ironically, I "turned them on" to BB and now they're great fans of his, too!) GREAT one Bill! Keep it up!

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Bryson is off the mark
Review: Bryson's book is an account of his trip to Australia, an account which has been embellished by exageration, extrapolation, inventions and parodies. An example is an event which Bryson suggests was an A-bomb detonation, but was in fact the impact of a piece of man-made space junk. The reentry of this junk was monitored before impact; and the impact site was surveyed and photographed; and so the event is not the mystery Bryson claims. A second example is Bryson's parodying of poetry by one of Australia's revered bush and war poets: Andrew Barton Paterson, CBE, but Bryson omitted any inclusion of Paterson or his work in the book's list of references. This book is funny in places, but the inaccuracies and the infantile quality of the writing (and repeated focus on excretia jokes)will ensure that it will be soon forgotten.


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