A Walk in the Woods
About the Author
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, but has lived most of his life in the UK. His first great success was The Lost Continent, an account of a trip round small-town America, and he came to greater prominence with an affectionate account of travels around Britain, Notes from a Small Island. His subsequent travelogues include Notes from a Big Country, on his relocation to the US, A Walk in the Woods, on hiking the Appalachian Trail, and Down Under, on a trip across Australia. In the last two decades Bryson’s broad and infectious curiosity has prompted investigations of Shakespeare, the English language, the human body, and – most ambitiously – A Short History of Nearly Everything, which won the EU Descartes Prize for science communication and was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize. He has also served as chancellor of Durham University, which renamed its library in his honour; as president of the Campaign to Protect Rural England; and as the first non-British honorary fellow of the Royal Society.