Picked this one up recently at a charity book sale in my building -- I cannot resist Bryson. I also know that I love his stuff so much it belongs in my permanent collection (although I also buy additional copies when I see them at thrift stores or book sales to share with others). Looking forward to reading this one I knock off a few others in Mt. TBR that are not staying with me.

I enjoyed this tour of Australia with Bill Bryson, but I must confess to being a smidgen disappointed. A couple of my friends had read this and given great reviews and for some reason I had it in my head that this was supposed to be one of his funniest books. It was good and informative and interesting and had a lot of humorous moments, but not as much laugh-out-loud stuff as A Walk in the Woods. I think if I had not had the higher expectations I would have liked the book much better.

As it is, I did enjoy getting to know an awful lot of Australian history that was previously unknown to me. Everyone knows that Australia was the place where Mother England shipped off all her petty criminals after "America became unavailable due to brief war" (as the now sadly-discredited-and-revealed-to-be-a-pedophile Rolf Harris once put it). But I don't think it is common knowledge anywhere besides Australia just how callous and haphazard this business of "transportation" was -- they were basically given no provisions or basic living supplies and most of them didn't have any useful skills for starting a colony. Absolutely amazing -- it explains the bitter humor in the view Australians have of England. Not that the white Australians were all that great in how they treated other people, mostly the Aborigines but also the few non-white immigrants they had. The country has done a lot of growing in recent times, which is nice to see, but there is still more room. I also learned a great deal about Canberra, home of my friend Pete, and it actually helped me understand him a little better. There is less real "there" there than is in Washington DC, a similarly planned city/national headquarters.

Came away still wanting to visit Oz one day and still liking Bryson, and wanting to reread A Walk in the Woods for the great laughs. This book is on the wishlist of someone registered for the Oxford Convention, so I decided to get it read and pass it along.

"A book is a mysterious object, I said, and once it floats out into the world, anything can happen. All kinds of mischief can be caused, and there's not a damned thing you can do about it. For better or worse, it's completely out of your control." -- Paul Auster

This book is one that I am taking to the Oxford Convention as a wishlist RABCK for one of my fellow BookCrossers.

And, since the books got really mixed up, I found another book of you in the to-be-journalled-stack.
Thank you so much! It looks like my reading tastes are shifting a bit: BookCrossing made me read books I'd never have thought of before and this (like other travel books) is one of those.

Thank you very much for fullfilling another one of my wishes, I am very happy! Will get back with a review once I've read it and will make sure it keeps on travelling once I'm finished. (After all it is a travel book :-)

Having heared much good about Bill Bryson's books, my expectations were quite high when I started reading this book.
Like 6of8 mentioned before, this is not a funny book. At least not for me.
It is interesting, most certainly. Inviting to travel down under? Yes it is too. I am still hesitant though, if I really want to go there. Terrified as I am of any kind of spiders and not a big fan of a lot of other creatures that come in abundance (if I take Bryson's word for it).

However, it was less a real travelogue than I expected, and I have read quite a few of them. Australia is strange, but what I missed/would have loved to read more about is the mishaps, accidents that happen when you travel. Or maybe I just completely missed these points...

This booknis on its way to the winner of the Australian Literature Sweepstakes.
Congratulations!!

I hope you like this book. May it travel safely and reach you soon!

This well travelled book, along with other goodies, has arrived in New Zealand. Thanks so much for posting, and congratulations on being a co-winner!!

This well travelled book has had a fair bit of research about Australia put in toit.

If you aren't familiar with Bookcrossing, take a few minutes to check out this very cool site. Bookcrossers LOVE books, and more than anything, they love to read books and then set them free for other people to find and enjoy. I would love it if you would leave a journal entry -- you can say where you found the book or how you liked it when you read it.

Removed from the shelf so it can be released further afield for others to read.

If you aren't familiar with Bookcrossing, take a few minutes to check out this very cool site. Bookcrossers LOVE books, and more than anything, they love to read books and then set them free for other people to find and enjoy. I would love it if you would leave a journal entry -- you can say where you found the book or how you liked it when you read it.

Author did not visit Tasmania. Maybe next time. Copy was in local street library.