Down Under: Travels in a Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson

From Goodreads

It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life – a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else.

Ignoring such dangers - and 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 ….

My thoughts

My brother loaned me his copy of this book. He started reading it while on holiday and was short of halfway through. He said it would be ages until he got back to it, as he's not a big reader (unlike me).

I've obviously heard of Bill Bryson, but until now I have never read any of his books before.

I gave this a 3.5 stars or 7/10. It was an interesting read with observations by Bryson of the countryside, history and the inhabitants of Australia. At times it was serious and at others it was handled with humour.

I will read more by Bryson, if and when I come across them.

The last lines in the book.

  'You see, Australia is an interesting place. It truly is. And that really is all I'm saying.

Excerpt 

This made me smile to myself when I read it. It proves that we should all be careful of what we say in front of young children.

A little bit about the passages before the excerpt. It's about something that happened in the 1950's, when a young family moved into a house next to a vacant lot. The vacant lot was being built on and the builders took to the little three year old girl from the family. They gave her little jobs to do and at the end of the week gave her a pay packet with her wages in.

Taken from the book …..

   'She took this home to her mother who made all the appropriate cooings of admiration and suggested that they take it to the bank the next morning to deposit it in her account.  When they went to the bank, the cashier was equally impressed and asked the little girl how she had come by her pay packet.
   ''I've been building a house this week," she replied proudly.
   "Goodness!" said the cashier. "And will you be building a house next week, too?"
   "I will if we ever get the fucking bricks," replied the little girl.