Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson is a best-selling American born British author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects. With a wacky worldview -- and wanderlust -- that garners him comparisons to everyone from Chaucer to Dave Barry, he entertains readers around the world with his travelogues and insights into the intricacies of language.

The Lost Continent, Bryson's hilarious first travel book, chronicles a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. Since then, he has written several more, including notable bestsellers, A Walk in the Woods, I'm A Stranger Here Myself (published in Britain as Notes from a Big Country), and In a Sunburned Country (published in Britain as Down Under).

His other books include Bill Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words, Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe, Made in America, The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson's African Diary and A Short History of Nearly Everything. His latest book, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, will be published in October 2006 and is a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the middle of the country in the all-American 1950s.

Hailing from Des Moines, Iowa, a backpacking expedition in 1973 brought him to England where he met his wife and decided to settle. He wrote for the English newspapers The Times and The Independent for many years, writing travel articles to supplement his income. He lived with his family in North Yorkshire before moving back to the States in 1995, New Hampshire, with his wife and four children. In 2003 he and his family moved back to England, where they currently reside.

In 2005, Bryson was appointed Chancellor of Durham University, succeeding the late Sir Peter Ustinov. He has also been awarded honorary degrees by numerous universities.