Bill Bryson Books

The Ascent of Rum Doodle is a "laugh out loud" book. It is a cult classic among climbers as it parodies climbing books from the 50's. The dry, understated British humor is a perfect fit for a story of a clueless, ill-fated climbing venture in the Himalayas. The foreword by Bill Bryson sets up the book very well.

This deliciously absurd, very short book can be enjoyed in a few hours. But the real pleasure is in reading it again to pick up the jokes missed first time. The story of an incompetent group of British amateurs and their attempt to climb the world's tallest mountain (the forty thousand and a half foot Rum Doodle), it is told in the first-person by the hapless expedition leader, Binder. Much of the humour comes from the contrast between Binder's stoical optimism and the disasters which he describes. Rum Doodle has been a classic word-of-mouth hit in the UK. Written in the 50s by an unassuming railway engineer who led a quiet, unassuming life, this flash of genius could easily have remained unread had it not been discovered and championed by Bill Bryson, the US author and Anglophile (who has written the foreward to this edition). If you like Monty Python or the UK version of The Office, you will love Rum Doodle.

If you're a serious student of mountaineering history and/or literature this is a must read. Rum Doodle will help you to put your passion into proper perspective.

If you don't give a damn about climbing but enjoy understated humor this is a fun read.

However, if you don't "get" nice and dry British humor don't bother. It's just not the book for you.

This is without a doubt the greatest spoof of the British mountaineering expedition accounts ever conceived. Every word of the book will ring true to readers that are familiar with the genre. I've read it three times and still find myself laughing out loud. But then again, I'm a climber so what do I know?

This book is one of my all-time favorite books! I was first introduced to "Rum Doodle" by my dad, Dee Molenaar, who himself had been a member of several mountaineering expeditions in the 50's and 60's. The Ascent of Rum Doodle brims with humor and a unique take on the world of high altitude climbing. I don't know if Bowman himself was a mountain-climber or not, but he certainly seems to understand the dynamics and personalities that sometimes are part of a mountain-climbing expeditiion.

There was a period of time a few years back during which I ate up the literature of British exploration like candy - the tragic story of Robert Scott in the Antarctic, the thrilling survival adventures of Sir Ernest Shackleton, and the like. These yarns had in common their Britishness - a bizarre combination of courage and, frankly, foolishness (Scott thought he could get to the South Pole on PONIES and died in pursuit of that belief, accompanied by some people who had never even been south before, while the Norwegian Amundsen sensibly took dogs and experienced skiers and beat him to the destination).

Fortunately the British have a world-class capacity to poke fun at their own foibles, and that is what "Ascent of Rum Doodle" is all about. It parodies a (fictional) expedition to ascend Rum Doodle, a 40,000-foot (!) mountain somewhere near Everest

Expedition Leader Binder narrates his own story. In the spirit of the literature he parodies, our hero Binder never once falters in his belief of the superiority of his crew and the indomitability of the British Spirit. This, despite his crew consisting of a geographer (who is unable to negotiate the London bus system), a doctor (who is always sick), a climber (too overcome by "lassitude" to get out of his sleeping bag), a native cook (so disastrous that the team attempts to leave him behind on the mountain), and a photographer (who does not capture a single shot during the entire expedition.

This hapless crew are babysat by thousands of native porters, who at one point must condescend to actually carry the British crew (fortified by the many crates of medicinal champagne they have burdened the porters with) on their backs.

Did I mention they accidentally climb the wrong mountain??

It's apparently a kind of cult classic among people who actually do this kind of adventuring (not just armchair folk like me), but it's a quick and funny funny read, so even if "frostbite" has not been a factor in your reading choices up to now, you should have a go at this one. A humor classic that should be better known in the U.S.

I fully agree with James Yanni's review. Even though quoting others, Bill Bryson's down-to-earth descriptions of the distance from Earth to Jupiter and of the depth of Earth's atmosphere are the two things I always tell others when talking about this book. You should read it.

In this book, Bryson does a marvellous job of living up to his title; he gives an overview of everything from the Big Bang theory to the evolution of modern man, giving a very balanced description of what is known, what isn't known, what competing theories there are and the arguments for and against the major schools of thought. But what's truly amazing is that he does this in very readable layman's language; any reasonably intelligent person should have very little trouble following his narrative. What's more, he has an amazing knack for putting things in perspective, whether detailing the size of the solar system and interstellar distances (his explanation for why pictures of the solar system are never to scale is particularly telling) or describing just how comparatively thin the envelope of atmosphere aound the earth is.

I cannot rate this book any higher; it is five stars with a bullet. If I were allowed, I'd give it seven stars.

I just discovered Bill Bryson a few months ago, and I have loved every book that I've read, but this is by far the most hilarious one yet. I was reading it while traveling in a car with my husband, and, after laughing out loud, would have to reread passages to him. I haven't found it on audio book, but would love to hear it in Bill's voice, which adds to his sarcastic wit.

In "Made in America", Bill Bryson charts the development of the United States of America, from the arrival of the earliest settlers to the quirks of modern day society. Yet this book is more than a mere history book. It is a celebration and an exposition of American popular culture, guaranteed to change the way you look at the U.S.A.

The scope of this book is very wide, yet the author's skill and wit hold it together quite nicely and the end result is very readable. Bryson covers topics as diverse as politics, the american language, the entertainment industry, the transport industries, moves, food and immigration - yet keeps the reader's attention the whole time with his eloquent prose and amusing anecdotes.

If you have ever wondered about the origins of the g-string, the hamburger, or the $64,000 question - then this is the book for you!

This book contains more than you expect. Bill Bryson covers language its self with a focus on English. The book covers speech from a historical view, a physical view, an environmental view, a utilitarian view, and many other views. You will want to play the tape over again as it cruses through many concepts that leave you thinking and speculating how it could have all gone differently.
A highlight for me (aside from his dirty word list) was the recognition that we try to impose Old Latin syntaxes on Modern English and it can get reticules.
My only disappointment comes when he mentions things I have already read and gets it wrong or off the mark.
The advantage of the tape is that you actually hear the pronunciations. When it is a matter of spelling the reader will spell it out for you. Also the reader has the ability to change accents to fit the dialect samples.
The disadvantage is when you want to turn back to a particular page for cross-reference; there is no page to turn. So I would be smart to won both versions.

I picked up this book at a used booksale, along with about 2 dozen other travel books. It was by far the best of any of them! I had read Mr. Bryson's Neither Here Nor There prior to diving into Palace, and enjoyed finding in this text a few more detailed summaries of the sights in his travelogue. Set up by country, Palace describes anywhere from one to 25 little-known sights for each country with enchanting, humorous detail. I am about to spend a year in Europe, and will certainly be investigating many of his "secrets". His descriptions were extroadinary, and I fell in love with some of the places just reading about them; I can't wait to actually experience them. As I searched through the 2 guidebooks that I am taking with me (a Let's Go and a Lonely Planet), I was thoroughly astounded at the number of places in Palace which weren't even mentioned in either of these. And if they were mentioned, 9 times out of 10, what Mr. Bryson wrote was infinitely more valuable. It is an insightful, enjoyable read, with characteristic brutal honesty from Bryson. A note of caution, though: This book was written about 15 years ago, and Europe has changed quite a bit since then. For example, Bryson lists the Algarve as one of Portugal's most beautiful, non-touristed spots, and it has since become a major tourist destination. There are several other extremely unique sights that probably no longer are in existence, but I am looking forward to searching them out anyway! I would certainly enjoy a more recent edition, should Mr. Bryson care to do all that careful research over again! Heck, I'd love to help! For anyone traveling through Europe with a "Back Door" philosophy, or for someone who likes the idea but can't stomach Rick Steves, this book is a jewel.

My wife is a bzzzagent and we received this book through audiobooks. I found it to be truly informative on geology and other sciences.Bill Bryson did the narrative and took any dryness out of the subject matter.I was anxious to get back in my car to hear more of his fun lectures.

I was first acquainted with Bill Bryson through his works on the English language and various travelogue types of books. In these books he proved to be an entertaining writer, witty and interesting, with just the right amount of I'm-not-taking-myself-too-seriously attitude to make for genuinely pleasurable reading. Other books of his, 'Notes from a Small Island' and 'The Mother Tongue', are ones I return to again and again. His latest book, one of the longer ones (I was surprised, as most Bryson books rarely exceed 300 pages, and this one weighs in well past 500), is one likely to join those ranks.

Of course, a history of everything, even a SHORT history of NEARLY everything, has got to be fairly long. Bryson begins, logically enough, at the beginning, or at least the beginning as best science can determine. Bryson weaves the story of science together with a gentle description of the science involved - he looks not only at the earliest constructs of the universe (such as the background radiation) but also at those who discover the constructs (such as Penzias and Wilson).

A great example of the way Bryson weaves the history of science into the description of science, in a sense showing the way the world changes as our perceptions of how it exists change, is his description of the formulation, rejection, and final acceptance of the Pangaea theory. He looks at figures such as Wegener (the German meteorologist - 'weatherman', as Bryson describes him) who pushed forward the theory in the face of daunting scientific rejection that the continents did indeed move, and that similarities in flora and fauna, as well as rock formations and other geological and geographical aspects, can be traced back to a unified continent. Bryson with gentle humour discusses the attitudes of scientists, as they shifted not quite as slowly as the continents, towards accepting this theory, making gentle jabs along the way (Einstein even wrote a foreword to a book that was rather scathing toward the idea of plate tectonics - brilliance is no guarantee against being absolutely wrong).

Bryson traces the development of the universe and the world from the earliest universe to the formation of the planet, to the growing diversity of life forms to development of human beings and human society. Inspired by Natural History (the short history refers more to natural history than anything else), this traces the path to us and possible futures. Bryson juxtaposes the creation of the Principia by Isaac Newton with the extinction of the dodo bird - stating that the word contained divinity and felony in the nature of humanity, the same species that can rise to the heights of understanding in the universe can also, for no apparent reason, cause the extinction of hapless and harmless fellow creatures on earth. Are humans, in Bryson's words, 'inherently bad news for other living things'? He recounts many of the truly staggering follies of species-hunting, particularly in the nineteenth century, calling upon people to take far more care of the planet with which we have been entrusted, either through design or fate.

Bryson's take on things is innovative and his narrative is interesting, but there is a point to it, just as there is with most of his writing. He writes not merely to entertain, or to inform, but to persuade. Bryson is intrigued by science, having a joy that comes across the page of someone who essentially did not know or understand a lot of the background of science and how it worked in the world until recently, and now wants to share that joy with everyone! He definitely has points to argue - for starters, the need for open-mindedness, even among (perhaps particularly among) those who are supposed to have the open and searching intellects, the scientists themselves. He also wishes others to know more about science, professionals and laypersons, and more about our own origins as a people, both in terms of where we've come from, and how we've come to know about it.

Unique among Bryson's writing in many ways, this is in some ways a travelogue through geology, paleontology, cosmology and evolution. A fun and fascinating read!

Es un libro que de una forma muy clara cuenta los hechos relevantes de la vida cientifica, a demas es de una lectura muy ligera

This book was written in the style of John McPhee and even quoting him once in a while. It includes facts and people like "The Perfect Storm." Then Bill Bryson adds first hand personal experiences. You can identify with his comments that do not have to be funny to be familiar.

This book recounts Bill Bryson's experiences on the Appalachian Trail. The dry facts can be picked up through other material. However the personal experiences are just that, personal. If you have never been hiking then you still get a feel for what you have missed. However if you have hiked then you can really appreciate the people he met, and circumstances that he went through. There are hikers and then there are hikers. In the Boy Scouts you are usually in a well-organized group, in the military you have to be more cautious of objects and terrain, Sierra Club and Outward Bound have their unique points of view. So if his experience is different, it still makes for fun reading.

I even liked the sections on selecting and using the equipment. I am afraid if I had met Bill Bryson on the trail; I would have been one of those "equipment comparing" people.

Anyway do not expect an epic and you will enjoy the time you spend reading this book. Oh, and it does make me want to go hiking.