Bill Bryson Books In Order

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Bill Bryson is a popular American author who was born in December 8, 1951.He wrote humorous book on science as well as travel and English language. They are the best selling books in the United States. Despite the fact that he was born in the USA, he resides in Britain for many years before returning to his homeland in 1995. In the year 2003, he again migrated back to Britain where he lived in the old-rectory of Wramplingham, Norfolk. There he served at Durham University as a chancellor from 2005 to 2011.

Bill Bryson shot to prominence, while living in the United Kingdom, when he published a book called Notes from a Small Island and this was in 1995.This was an exploration of the entire Britain and the television series that accompanied it. During this time, Bryson received a very big and widespread recognition. In 2003 he also published A Short History of Nearly Everything and this is the book that widely acclaimed its communication accessibility of science.

Early Life of Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Lowa. His father was William Bryson and his mother, Agnes Mary was of Irish origin or descent. He also has a sister named Mary Jane Elizabeth and an elder brother named Michael. In 2006 Bryson was blessed to publish another book called The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. This book emphasized greatly on a humorous-account of his childhood years when he was in Des Moines.

Bryson studied in Drake University for a period of two years before eventually dropping in 1972. It is then that he made a decision to backpack in Europe and stayed there for almost four months. The next year he returned to Europe and at this time he was with the pseudonymous Stephen Katza, his high school friend, . The experiences and adventures that he had from the trip to Europe are relived in his book ” Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe”. This book documents again the same journey that Bryson had made twenty years later.

Bryson’s Move to the United Kingdom

This author had his first visit to Britain in the year 1973 and this was during his tour in Europe. He decided to stay there after landing a job in a psychiatric/mental hospital that is now called the defunct Holloway-Sanatorium in the Virginia Water, Surrey. It is in the same hospital that Bryson met with a nurse named Cynthia Billen. He decided to marry her and then they later transferred to the United States in 1975 so that Bryson would continue and complete his University degree.

Then he decided to settle in Britain from 1977 to 1995.While he was staying in North Yorkshire his main career was working as a journalist and it was at this time that he has given a chance to be the chief copy editor of a section of a business that was called The Independent. In the year 1987, Bryson decided to officially quit his work as a journalist, this was after the birth of his third child. As he was staying in Kirkby Malham, North Yorkshire, it is then that he decided to write his own independent work before the birth of their fourth child Samuel who was born in the year 1990.He did not take the British citizenship for all this time that he stayed there because he declined the citizenship test claiming that he was afraid or lacking the courage to take it.

Bryson’s Writings

When Bryson went back to the United States in the year 1995, he wrote a column for several years for the British newspapers. At this time he was living in Hanover, New Hampshire. In his columns, he mainly reflected on the humorous aspects that were based on his repatriation-in-America. He took a selection of these columns and adapted them to become his book which he called ” I’m a Stranger Here Myself”. He also titled notes from a Big Country in Britain, Australia and Canada. While in the USA he decided to walk the Trail of Appalachian and he did this with his friend Stephen Kats who was a pseudonym and it is here that he wrote a book called A walk In the Woods. Bryson then in 2003 decided to return to Britain with his wife and four children where they lived again in Norfolk. On the same year, he was again assigned to be the commissioner of the English Heritage.

Honors and Awards Received by Bill Bryson

In 2005 he served as a chancellor at Durham University. He is the one who succeeded the late Sir Peter Ustinov and his appointment made him to become more active in dealing with the activities of students as his post mandated. He appeared in a Durham student film that was called the sequel to The Assassinator that was aimed at promoting the litter picks in this city. Bryson greatly praises Durham as a “perfect-little-city” in Notes from a Small Island.

Numerous universities awarded him honorary degrees including Open University and Bournemouth University that awarded him in April of 2002. He was also lucky to receive the president’s award and this was from the Royal-Society-of-Chemistry. This was due to advancement in the cause of the chemical sciences. In this year he again jointly with the RSC created the “Bill-Bryson-prize”. This was an annual award that was done in order to encourage and boost the writing of sciences in schools.

In 2006 Des Moines mayor (Frank Cownie) awarded Him the key to the city and then announced to the people that October 21st would be known as “Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid Day”. On the 13th of December, he was awarded an honorary OBE due to his great contribution to literature. In the year 2007 he won the Golden-Eagle-Award and in October, 2010 he was announced to be stepping down his role as a chancellor at Durham-University. On May of 2013 he was elected as an Honorary-Fellow of the Royal Society and became the first Non Britain to be conferred such an honor.

Books by Author Bill Bryson

Bryson has written different types of books that can be categorized under language, biography, travel, science, history as well as memoir.

William McGuire Bill Bryson was born in 1951, in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. He later in 1977 went to settle in England. Bill Bryson lived in North Yorkshire for almost twenty years. He has lived with his family is Hanover, New Hampshire. William McGuire has a spouse, Cynthia Billen; they are happily married. Cynthia was working as a nurse while they meet with Bill Bryson. Bryson had just landed a job in the psychiatric hospital where Cynthia was working and they tied the knot in 1975. Together, they have four children, Samuel, Catherine, Felicity and David. He was born to Mary Bryson and William and has an older brother Michael. He also has a sister, Mary Elizabeth. Bryson’s mother was of an Irish descent. He dropped out of Drake University in 1972 after two years of study. He backpacked around Europe for four months. The following year, he moved back to Europe together with the pseudonymous Stephen Katz, a high-school friend. Later, Bryson reveals some of his experiences from this trip as flashbacks in his book Neither Here Nor There: Travels in Europe. The book documents a similar journey McGuire Bill made two centuries later.

Bill Bryson writes more on non-fiction books most specifically on travel. Additionally, he has written books on Shakespeare, his own childhood, and on language. His books One Summer: America (1927) and At Home: a Short History of Private Life recorded great sales. In the United Kingdom, he has sold more non-fiction books than any other author has. On December 13, 2006, he was awarded an OBE for his great contribution to literature. His most successful work in his writing career is most seen in the books A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003), The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid (2006) and The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (1990). In addition to being an author, Bryson had a stake in the education sector. He served as the chancellor of the University of Durham, a position he got after the death of Peter Ustinov. His book A Short History of Nearly Everything, an acclaimed book on the history of science, has won him two awards. The first was the Descartes Prize, the highest literary award in the European Unionist and next was the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize. The book Notes from a Small Island was voted as the best book that best represents Britain, in a national poll among other awards.

One of his travel books, A Walk in the Woods has been made into a movie starring Robert Redford who played Bryson, Emma Thompson and Nick Nolte (costing as Katz). Bill Holderman wrote the final screenplay of the film that was originally drafted by Amicalola Falls. The movie was filmed, largely, at Amicalola Falls State Park, Dawsonville, Georgia. Some scenes were filmed at the Amicalola Falls Lodge. It was the premier film at the Sundance Film Festival in 2015. His outstanding book Notes from a Small Island (1996) was serialized on the BBC Radio 4. Kerry Shale was the narrator of the series. The book was also adapted for television in 1998 by Carlton Television. It was broadcast as a six-part thirty-minute documentary on ITV in 1999 between January and February. The book is audio formatted as well. Kerry Shale had read the book in 15-minute episodes and from then, it has been repeated several times on BBC Radio 7.

In the humorous travel book Notes from a Small Island (1995), Bryson engages on a trip to all corners of the Island. He makes great observations and talks to people from the northeastern tip, John O’Groats to Exeter, West Country. Despite insisting on using public transport, he fails in two occasions. He had to rent a car to John O’Groats and Oxfordshire. He gives historical information all the way his journey and shows amazement at Britain’s heritage. Bill reveals that there were 12,000 medieval churches, 600,000 ha of common land and 445,000 buildings that were being listed. Additionally there were 120,000 miles of public rights-of-way and footpaths and 600,000 archeological sites. He plays homage to various peculiarities of British English and Britain as well as trying times of the British people such as the Great Depression and World Wars. Bryon re-visits Virginia water and works at Holloway Sonatoruim at his first visit to Britain in 1973. It is when working here when he met his future fiance. Bill also expresses concerns on the British assumption that everything was ordered by a number and failing to understand the meaning of counterpane, which the people assumed to be associated with a window. At that, time there was a popular brand, Embassy Regal Number 1. In British English, asking for twenty (cigarettes) means a packet and not twenty of them.

In the book A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail (1998), Bryson describes his attempt to walk the Appalachian Trail with his high-school friend Stephen Katz. The book written in humorous style discusses more seriously on matters relating to the surrounding ecology, sociology, people, animals, plants and trees, and trail’s history. At first, Bill Bryson explains his curiosity about Appalachian Trail that is near his house. With his friend Stephen, they start hiking the trail in the south, from Georgia State. They stubble in the beginning because. At this point, they are not used to their equipment. Bryson realizes that it is even more difficult to travel with his friend, an overweight and crude recovering alcoholic, who seemed unprepared for the ordeal. They come into shock when they get to Gatlinburg, Tennessee, and realize that they have barely begun. Bryson had seemed that they had already hiked a large distance, but conversely the whole endeavor was too much for the two friends. They choose to begin again in Roanoke, Virginia, after skipping a huge section of the trail. After nearly 1,300 Km (800 Miles) of hiking the hiking section ends; Bryson goes on a book tour and Katz returns to Des Moines to work. Bryson continue to hike in the following months and visits several places. Later, he reunites with Katz on a mission to hike Hundred Mile Wilderness in Maine. He, however, doesn’t complete the trial.

2 Responses to “Bill Bryson”

1. Costel Harnasz: 2 years ago

   Dear Graeme, this is a lovely site that I stumbled across when trying (fruitlessly) to see if there was a Spanish translation of one of Bill Bryson’s books. Normally, I eventually get what I am looking for on Google, but strangely this eluded me. It raised the general question of lists of authors’ books to include foreign language editions. I know this is not the remit of Book Series in Order, but if you could point me in the right direction I would appreciate it. The book I was looking for a spanish translation of is ‘Notes from a Small Island’ – which I thought might exist; my wife’s mother has a Hungarian translation of his ‘At Home, a Short History of Private Life’ which was a surprise to discover! Your site I should say is beautifully and clearly laid out. Regards, Cos Harnasz (Manchester UK)

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   • Graeme: 2 years ago

     Apologies for the delay in reply – this comment got caught in the spam filter. Unfortunately, I am not aware of any good resources in regard to translations. That would be a cool resource to have for sure. I researched it and couldn’t see a Spanish translation either – looked on various Spanish book sites. And thanks for the feedback Cos – much appreciated.

     Reply