“Read us another story!” my kids would beg as we settled into our RV in some Outback campground. Bryson’s book was our constant companion as we traversed that exotic land over two months. But his masterful storytelling – and his ability to weave story and anecdotes of all flavors and experience – create rich vignettes suitable for most everyone in the family. And one that my children and I now consider our adopted home.īryson’s work is not a family book, per se, particularly if some family members are not tall enough to ride the scariest rides at Disney.
But through his antics across Australia, I came to first know a country I’ve since fallen in love with. Bill Bryson was the funniest date I’d had in years we’d simply take our hilarity and our business elsewhere.īill Bryson has been criticized for being more about Bryson than about the place, and perhaps there’s truth to that.
When the kind maitre’d finally wandered over and suggested I either put away the book or find another spot to read – that my hysterical outbursts were disturbing the romantic mood – I wiped away the laughing tears and took my book and my wine elsewhere. And so it was in a quiet little wine bar, nestled back in a romantically lit corner that I dove into Bryson’s stories of the outback. I first read the book on my annual sabbatical – a respite I give myself every year where I go somewhere, alone, to read and reflect and plan what’s next. Austin and Emmi at the Remarkable Rocks on Kangaroo Island, off the coast of Adelaide (and ironically, a spot that even Bryson doesn’t cover in his book.)
With Bill Bryson’s In a Sunburned Country as our testimonial to all things Australian, it’s no wonder I chose to ignore the death wish mantra and make Australia our jumping off point for our Family Vagabonding adventures over five years ago. (3) The country and its quirky, opinionated, hard-ridden, passionate and sometimes half-baked crazy people can worm their way into your soul and never let go. Between the sharks, crocodiles, blue octopi, and tiny microscopic jellyfish that can kill you before you even feel them, stepping out of your car and into the wilds is, according to Bryson, a death wish. (2) You’re more likely to die in Australia than anywhere else in the world, particularly if your chosen death method is by wild and woolly beast. No one heard it, felt it, had any inkling whatsoever for years. (1) The place is huge, so huge in fact that when a rogue activist group reportedly detonated a test nuclear device in the outback, no one even knew about it for years. Book: In A Sunburned Country by Bill Bryson By Powell BergerĪsk Bill Bryson about Australia and he makes three points quite clear:
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