Customer Reviews (4)

Bryson's humor makes this a wonderful memoir
The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid was such an unforgettable joy to read. The humor and warmth that was woven through this wonderful memoir made it one of my favorite books of all time. I have given a copy of it to all of my family members and friends. I found myself identifying with many of his experiences and emotions.

Very funny back in time book
I found this book hilarious. Bill Bryson takes a look back at his childhood unabashedly. One problem I had was I couldn't read this book in waiting rooms because I would frequently laugh out loud and get weird stares. I ordered an extra copy to give away. Makes a great gift. Will lift your mood. Highly recommended.

Funniest history book I ever read.
I think that one needs to be of the right generation to get the full effect of the lightning bolts in this book, else some of the humor might get lost along the way.Bill Bryson is the funniest writer I know of and this is the funniest book in his arsenal.His take on growing up in small town America in the early 50's is spot on as far as I can tell.I've given away six copies of this book now to friends who are roughly in my age bracket. The amazing thing is that their kids tell me how great it was for them to understand more of the ethos of their parent's childhoods.
I won't say that Bill Bryason can do no wrong; some of his long-winded pedantry about language can be a bit stuffy, though he did free me from the (I thought written and immutable) rule that one may not end a sentence with a preposition.I'll still probably buy anything he writes.
The Thunderbolt Kid will always be one of my favorite characters in literature; right up there with Mr. Toad.

Bill does it again!
Bill Bryson's books are always reliable great writing and great humor.This one about his boyhood in Iowa was so good that I passed it on to a friend who also grew up in Desmoines (sp?).I grew up in a small town in the Central Valley of California in the 1950's, and still found nearly all of the references totally relevant; what a great trip back through the eccentricities of that era. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Very good
Felicidades, el libro me llegó en perfectas condiciones y lo recibí mucho antes que la fecha programada. ... Read more

Product Description
With a wacky worldview -- and wanderlust -- that garners him comparisons to everyone from Chaucer to Dave Barry, Bill Bryson entertains readers around the world with his travelogues and riffs on the intricacies of language. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

I love this book.
I'm not entirely sure how often the author, Bill Bryson, writes in jest, and how often he is actually betraying his pedantic, pompous and pretentious side.

There are a number of cases of apparent hypocrisy on the author's behalf, regarding the use of pretentious and pompous language.These few occurrences aside, I can find little fault with this book, but much praise for it.Enlightenment and humour are abundant, eliciting many chuckles each time I sit down for a good read of this book.

This is not a book that one can enjoy reading for very long at a time, since the memory reaches saturation rather quickly - it is a dictionary, after all.Hence, short daily doses are what Dr Benesato recommends to get word better user.

Benesato.

Not just for writers!
I borrowed this book from a friend, having found that it was out of print.I found it fascinating, and interesting.It not just for acdemics, but suitable for anybody who has an interest in words.The book covers common gramatical errors - many of which are to be found in what is usually considered to be one of "The Better" daily newspapers!It also guides the reader through some of the more unusual usage of the English language.It is book to dip into time and time again.

A guide to the pit-falls of the English language.
Bill Bryson guides us through some of the most abused, misused and overused words in the English language.Although his writing is no-nonsense, there are occasional dashes of wit: prevent the book frombecoming tedious.Although designed for writers and editors, thecombination of wit and extracts from newspapers - used to illustrate commonmistakes - makes this book suitable for any audience. ... Read more

Product Description
Where do wombats fly through the air?…In this amusing and informative foray through the “country downunder,” Australia’s Bill Bryson tells us of the history of intriguing continent — and he fascinates the reader with a tale both scurrilous and unusual.

Was ist das für ein Land, in dem sich fliegende Füchse tummeln und Schweinefußnasenbeutler einst ihr Unwesen trieben? In seinem ebenso amüsanten wie informativen Streifzug durch ein unbekanntes Australien erzählt Bill Bryson von den historischen Hintergründen der Entdeckung dieses faszinierenden Kontinents - und hält den Leser mit seinem scharfen Blick für alles Skurrile und Ungewöhnliche in Atem. ... Read more

Product Description
SynopsisIn this much anticipated addition to the Eminent Lives series, Bill Bryson's biography of William Shakespeare unravels the superstitions, academic discoveries and myths surrounding the life of our greatest poet and playwright. Shakespeare's life, despite the scrutiny of generations of biographers and scholars, is still a thicket of myths and traditions, some preposterous, some conflicting, arranged around the few scant facts known about the Bard -- from his birth in Stratford to the bequest of his second best bed to his wife when he died. Following his international bestsellers 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and 'The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid', Bill Bryson has written a short biography of William Shakespeare for the Eminent Lives series -- which seeks to pair great subjects with writers known for their strong sensibilities and sharp, lively points of view. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Here we go again
As Bryson says, "this book was written not so much because the world needs another book on Shakespeare as because this series does." Indeed! How this "slender" book (as Bryson calls it) manages to be (as the cover advertises) a "best seller", is as much a mystery as Shakespeare "the man" that Bryson (as all those Stratfordian biographers before him) fails to bring to life.

Shakespeare, schmakespeare. Long live Bill Bryson!
Bill Bryson's smart style and skeptical wit lends Shakespeare, The World as Stage all the readability possible given the subject. With his usual storytelling charm, he recounts the facts of Shakespeare's life, what little we know, and debunks alternative authorship theories. Shakespeare, schmakespeare. Long live Bill Bryson! He can write about anything and make it a blast. ... Read more

Product Description
First published in 1956, The Ascent of Rum Doodle quickly became a mountaineering classic. As an outrageously funny spoof about the ascent of a peak in the Himalayas, many thought it was inspired by the 1953 conquest of Everest. But Bowman had drawn on the flavour and tone of earlier adventures, of Bill Tilman and his 1937 account of the Nandi Devi expedition. The book’s central and unforgettable character, Binder, is one of the finest creations in comic literature. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Silly
Not as funny as Bill Bryson says it is.kind of silly and predictable.

The Best Book Ever
I've worked my way through so many copies of this book it's actually not funny! The issue is I can't help lending them to friends or random people I meet, and it is rarely returned. It's the best book ever! Buy me another copy, it's on my Amazon Wish List! Why do Amazon not sell this book in packs of ten?

Anyway, the story is a beautiful tale of British misadventure in the Himalayas. If you've ever been to the region this will add to your appreciation of the humour, but if not - neither had the author, apparently Bowman never left the UK. This book is the Fawlty Towers of Mountaineering, and should really be made into a film (there's already a restaurant named after it in Kathmandu).

Update: Incidentally I have now read the source book which Rum Doodle set out to parady - The Ascent of Nanda Devi by HW Tilman, and I can report that the source book is funny too, though not to the extent of RD (it is a proper mountaineering account, after all!). I gave a copy (3 for 2 at famous London map shop at the moment ;) to a friend a few days ago and yesterday he rang me merely to tell me that he was reading RD on the train and had to stop because of the roaring laughter it was inducing. NB the litmus test is whether you like Jerome K Jerome humour - if you found Three Men in a Boat funny, you will love this book!

Muddling through in the best tradition of the Empire
"For most people, it appears, RUM DOODLE is the funniest book they have never heard of." - Bill Bryson, in the Introduction to THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE

Even if you've never climbed, or thought in your life to climb, an Asian massif, THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE is worth a couple of hours of your time. The book's author, W.E. Bowman, an English civil engineer, himself never ascended anything more challenging than the gentle slopes of England's Lake District. RUM DOODLE is, according to Bryson, a parody based on the Ascent of Nanda Devi by H.W. Tilman (1937).

Rum Doodle is a forty-thousand foot peak in the fictional country of Yogistan. The narrative of the assault on its summit is told in the first person by the British expedition's leader, who's known to the reader only by his walkie-talkie pseudonym, Binder. (The time is presumably the mid-1950's when the volume was first published - no sat phones here.) The six others on the ascent team are: Burley, the commissaryman, Wish, the scientist, Jungle, the route-finder, Shute, the photographer, Constant, the translator, and Prone, the physician. It should come as no surprise that each is either incompetent or otherwise unsuitable for the mission. Binder himself is as about an unheroic and ineffectual as can be imagined; he has no concept of the leadership qualities required for an expedition on which the greatest dangers not posed by the mountain itself are the horrific, panic-inciting concoctions served up by the chief cook, Pong. Indeed, it's Binder's utter cluelessness that is the lynchpin of the story's humor.

I would politely disagree with Bryson that THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE "is the funniest book (most people) have never heard of." In my opinion, that honor goes to The Complete McAuslan by George MacDonald Fraser, which is, most assuredly, the most laugh-inspiring book I've ever read. But, THE ASCENT OF RUM DOODLE, at 171 pages, is a quick read in a small package amenable to inclusion in a backpack for the hike down into the Grand Canyon last week. During a longer than expected stop at Indian Gardens on the Bright Angel Trail, it, between the arrival of the mule trains, proved a most amusing, four-star diversion while I awaited someone ascending on foot from Phantom Ranch.

You'll laugh out loud
The Ascent of Rum Doodle is a "laugh out loud" book.It is a cult classic among climbers as it parodies climbing books from the 50's.The dry, understated British humor is a perfect fit for a story of a clueless, ill-fated climbing venture in the Himalayas.The foreword by Bill Bryson sets up the book very well.

Very silly British humour - one of the funniest books I've ever read
This deliciously absurd, very short book can be enjoyed in a few hours.But the real pleasure is in reading it again to pick up the jokes missed first time.The story of an incompetent group of British amateurs and their attempt to climb the world's tallest mountain (the forty thousand and a half foot Rum Doodle), it is told in the first-person by the hapless expedition leader, Binder.Much of the humour comes from the contrast between Binder's stoical optimism and the disasters which he describes.Rum Doodle has been a classic word-of-mouth hit in the UK.Written in the 50s by an unassuming railway engineer who led a quiet, unassuming life, this flash of genius could easily have remained unread had it not been discovered and championed by Bill Bryson, the US author and Anglophile (who has written the foreward to this edition).If you like Monty Python or the UK version of The Office, you will love Rum Doodle. ... Read more

Product Description
Sabias que cada uno de los atomos que forma tu organismo seguramente que antes de formar parte de ti ha pasado por varias estrellas y formado parte de millones de organismos? Que les paso a los dinosaurios? Como de grande es el universo? Cuanto pesa la Tierra? Por que los oceanos son salados? Encontraremos aqui unos cuantos cientificos raros teorias erroneas que dominaron durante demasiado tiempo y varios descubrimientos casuales que cambiaron la historia de la ciencia. ... Read more

Product Description
The Appalachian Chronicles are a series of books based on the fictional experiences of two Appalachian Trail thru-hikers. Their goal is to hike the roughly 2160 miles from Springer Mountain, Georgia to Mt. Katahdin, Maine and to enjoy the solitude that is inherent in the journey. At times, however, they seek a break from the endless marching and wander from the more predictable path.

The first book, Shades of Gray, is set in rural Virginia at the back door of Appomattox Court House, where, according to historians, the Civil War ended...


From Chapter I:

Half-listening to Max whistle, I sat checking mileage estimates for our next week of hiking. He slowly circled his cup above the few remaining embers of our fire, while I tried to make out his tune. The song sounded as if it was an octave too low and each note was drawn-out, perhaps, an extra eighth or quarter. I couldn’t tell if the tune was meant to be a soothing one, like the sound of a parent softly singing a child to sleep; or, if it was a lonely message to someone who had been lost long ago. The truth is I couldn’t tell if his song had any intent at all, but I could see as he gazed into the fire that there was something longing in his eyes.
... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

social commentary
Review Update: The more I read and hear about the Virginia governor's proclamation making April "Confederate History Month" in the Old Dominion the more I am reminded of Fox's book. If I thought some of Fox's narrative might have been overstated, I feel otherwise now. It's not a perfect book, even a bit amateurish, but it hits at least one relevant nail square on the head - upgrade to 5 stars until Virginia gets a new governor.

Original Review: If Tony Horwitz gave us Confederates in the Attic: Dispatches from the Unfinished Civil War, then Seneca Fox calls them out the with the first installment of the "Appalachian Chronicles".This is a story about an Appalachian Trail hiker who impulsively leaves the trail and spends an evening inside a Civil War reenacting encampment. Other than borrowing the idea of immersing an outsider into the culture of Civil War reenacting from Horwitz, Fox delivers a piece of social commentary that is original, authentic and even thought provoking - especially for someone who grew-up in the South.

Not Bad
Makes you think about your life and what you value. Its the small things the make us who we are. Easy and quick to read and cost less than a cup of coffee. ... Read more