Download or read book Quicklet on Bill Bryson s In a Sunburned Country CliffNotes like Summary written by Ben Mitchell Lewis and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 37 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK “This is a country that loses a prime minister and that is so vast and empty that a band of amateur enthusiasts could conceivably set off the world’s first non-governmental atomic bomb on its mainland almost four years would pass before anyone noticed. Clearly, this is a place worth getting to know.” In a Sunburned Country is Bill Bryson’s seventh book on travel. Published just five years after his much-celebrated travelogue of Great Britain, Notes from a Small Island, the book takes on a much bigger topic: Australia. The book was published just before the 2000 Olympic Games in Sydney, and some later editions have an appendix chronicling Bryson’s time spent as a spectator. Yet, the focus of the book is on Bryson’s several trips to the massive island over the course of a year. Bryson finds himself hopping back and forth between various points in Australia, his home in New England, and a few other international locales. He never strays for long though, and much of the book is spent in the car and at dozens of hotels, pubs, and attractions along Australia’s 23,000 mile coastline. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Next we meet Alan Howe, an old friend from London. Along with his wife, Carmel, Howe takes Bryson on several adventures to natural wonders, many of which are quite near his vacation home in the hills. After journeying with Howe for a few days, Bryson again strikes out on his own and heads north towards Brisbane. In the midst of his travels, he digresses into a chapter about Australia’s native people—the Aborigines. The history is unbelievable. The Aborigines are an incredibly ancient tribe who still astound scientists today. After a short time walking the beaches of the Gold Coast and extolling the history of the area, Bryson departs, returns home for a time, then returns for the final leg of his trip. In part three, “Around the Edges,” Bryson careens towards the wilder parts of the country. He is accompanied by Allan Sherwin, a friend from London. The most exciting leg of his journey begins as he travels to Great Barrier Reef and braves the sharks and waves native to the area. Buy a copy to keep reading!

Download or read book Quicklet on Bill Bryson s A Short History of Nearly Everything CliffNotes like Summary written by Nicole Cipri and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 32 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK In his introduction to A Short History of Nearly Everything, author Bill Bryson describes a childhood experience common to many of us: a brief infatuation with science, with all its potential and possibility. For Bryson, it was inspired by a textbook’s cut-away illustration of the interior strata of the Earth, with the molten core at the center. For myself, it was a children’s biography of Jacques Cousteau. Excited by the nearly endless prospects of science, the questions that could finally satisfy a child’s curiosity, we both reached for more books, and found our budding passions firmly squashed by an impenetrable wall of unfathomable writing. As Bryson writes in his introduction, “there seemed to be a mystifying universal conspiracy among textbook authors to make certain the material they dealt with never strayed too near the realm of the mildly interesting.” Bryson wrote A Short History of Nearly Everything as an antidote to the dry-as-dust science tomes that weigh down students’ backpacks. It is a layman’s love song to science, to its strange history and stranger characters. Published in 2003, it has been become a popular addition to the popular science genre. MEET THE AUTHOR Nicole Cipri is a restless wanderer and passionate writer. A graduate of the Evergreen State School in Olympia, WA, Nicole has since written about such varied topics as modern urban farming, the role of glitterbombing as political theater, and the economic impacts of natural disasters. You can follow her adventures on Twitter, @nicolecipri. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Drama abounded in the 19th century. After the discovery of the first dinosaur fossil in 1784, and with subsequent uncovering of massive bones that belonged to other extinct species, there was an uncomfortable public debate concerning extinctions. Why, after all, would an omniscient God create species of animals only to casually wipe them out? Throughout history, the sciences have routinely butted heads with the Church, a trend that continues today. From geology and paleontology, Bryson moves to chemistry. With its origins in the enigmatic studies of alchemy, chemistry evolved along its own strange path. Bryson tells one exemplifying story, in which an amateur alchemist became convinced the he could distill gold from human urine. “The similarity of color,” Bryson explains, “seems to have been a factor in his conclusion.” In an attempt to prove his hypothesis, the man collected fifty buckets of human urine, which he kept in his cellar. After a few months, the man noted, the substance in the buckets began to glow or explode into flames when exposed to air. He had failed in distilling gold from urine, but he had succeeded in creating phosphorous. Buy a copy to keep reading!

Download or read book Quicklet on Bill Bryson s The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid A Memoir CliffNotes like Summary written by Becki Chiasson and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-02-24 with total page 28 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK “Growing up was easy. It required no thought or effort on my part. It was going to happen anyway. So what follows isn’t terribly eventful, I’m afraid. And yet it was by a very large margin the most fearful, thrilling, interesting, instructive, eye-popping, lustful, eager, troubled, untroubled, confused, serene, and unnerving time of my life.” So begins “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid,” which was published in 2006. It was a departure from Bill Bryson’s earlier books. His previous work, “A Short History of Nearly Everything,” a book about science written for the average Joe, had taken a lot out of him and he wanted to work on something easier. Bryson told the Guardian: “I promised my wife I would do a book I could stay at home to do ... and I promised my publisher that I would do something more amusing that would corral back the core of my readership, some of whom doubtless were slightly appalled and alienated by A Short History. And also, purely in a selfish way, I wanted to do a book that I wouldn't have to do a lot of hard thinking and research about. I did miss writing humorous things.” MEET THE AUTHOR Becki Chiasson is a Baltimore-based writer who received her BS in Mass Communications from Towson University. Although she spent some time in New York as a crossword puzzle editor, she returned to her hometown in Maryland in 2010 to focus on writing. Her favorite topics include video games and women's issues. When she's not busy writing up a storm, she crochets, plays video games, and bakes. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK “The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid” centers on Bryson’s life as a young child in Des Moines, Iowa during the 1950s and follows Bryson through puberty. The plot is less of a structured narrative and more of a series of loosely related, humorous anecdotes about growing up during happier, simpler times. A central conceit to the book is the idea that Bryson was the Thunderbolt Kid, a superhero who could make his enemies (usually people Bryson deemed to be morons) disappear in a flash of light by casting a withering stare at them. This superpower is presented in all seriousness, although it is rather doubtful that it ever happened. The first time Bryson used his superpower, he was six years old. He was at a diner with his mother and discovered to his great chagrin that the ancient-looking man next to him had been drinking out of Bryson’s water glass. Worse still, the man had been eating poached eggs, which Bryson positively despised. Bryson freaked out, gagging, and the man only laughed, having no remorse at all. When he turned to leave, “as he reached out to open the door, bolts of electricity flew from my wildly dilated eyes and played over his body. He shimmered for an instant, contorted in a brief, silent rictus of agony, and was gone. It was the birth of ThunderVision. The world had just become a dangerous place for morons.” Buy a copy to keep reading!

Download or read book Quicklet on Bill Bryson s Notes from a Big Country written by Peg Robinson and published by Hyperink Inc. This book was released on 2012-04-04 with total page 63 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ABOUT THE BOOK The first time I read a Bill Bryson book, I was not expecting much at all. For many years my family shared a rustic cottage on a lake with all the other members of my mother's family. Entertainment on nice days usually involved swimming, swimming, more swimming, and the occasional nap. On gray days, we read. Over the years four generations of the family left behind a muddled collection of books. When I read through the books I had brought with me, I'd grab whatever my relations had left behind. That's how I first encountered Bill Bryson. I found a well-worn, tattered copy of A Walk in the Woods, left behind by a relative. I picked it up with uncertainty, not sure I was completely interested in a stranger's account of a summer spent hiking the Appalachian Trail. As for a stranger who told that story while trying to be funny? I suspended my disbelief. But, Bryson really was funny. So funny that when I returned home I promptly ordered a copy and made my husband read it. After finishing it, he went out and got still more Bryson books. They were funny, too. That's the first thing that should be said about Bryson, and about Notes from a Big Land: It's a funny book written by a man who has a mastery of funny. MEET THE AUTHOR Peg Robinson holds a BA in Religious Studies from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and has partially completed an MA/PhD in Mythological Studies from Pacifica Graduate Institute. She holds a certificate in copy editing from Media Bistro. Her publishing career started in 1998, on winning a place in Simon and Schuster's Star Trek: Strange New Worlds competition. Her novelette "Tonino and the Incubus" qualified for the 2007 Nebula Awards. She has worked as a content provider, copy writer, informational writer, copy editor, and developmental editor. EXCERPT FROM THE BOOK Notes from a Big Country is the British version of a book published in the United States under the title I'm a Stranger Here, Myself. Both books are compiled of essays written for the British publication, Mail on Sunday's Night and Day, edited by Simon Kelner, a friend and associate of Bryson's. There are extensive differences between the two books. Notes from a Big Country contains a full 78 essays; I'm a Stranger Here, Myself contains only 70. Editorial adjustments were made to take the language and assumptions of each nation into account. An extensive comparison of the two volumes can be found from the Department of Translation Studies, at the University of Tanjere. The linguistic analysis may not interest everyone, but it provides a fairly extensive overview of the changes made in adapting the book for two distinct audiences. There is no question to an American reader that Notes from a Big Country was written for an English audience. While Bryson is on record as considering his identity in England that of an outsider it's impossible to read the essay chapters without realising how deeply Bryson has adapted to English culture. It's equally impossible to miss how profoundly he felt the culture-shock on returning to the United States. Buy a copy to keep reading! CHAPTER OUTLINE Quicklet on Bill Bryson's Notes from a Big Country Bill Bryson’s Notes from a Big Country + Introduction + Biographical Information + Overview: Notes from a Big Country + Material and Tone + ...and much more