Synopsis (Credit: www.amazon.co.uk)

Australia is a country that exists on a vast scale. It is the world's sixth largest country and its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent and the only continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still it teems with life — a large proportion of it quite deadly.

In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistable currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback.

Ignoring such dangers — yet curiously obsessed by them — Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging; their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this.

(Bought second-hand at the Central Library, Drill Hall, Cape Town.)

Bill Bryson succeeds uniquely in introducing the reader to the vast, off-the-scale magic of Australia. A most enjoyable read.

One is left the realisation that it's a place worth visiting. Only, you'll need at least half a lifetime to do it properly.

Some personal irritation with one or two minor aspects of his work, as usual, makes it a 7 rather than an 8 for me.

Given to potential BCer RP.

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