Bill Bryson, página 2 de 6

Australia es el sexto país más grande del mundo y la isla más extensa. Isla, país, continente. Seco, árido, yermo y climáticamente agresivo. Un país donde el gusano más peludo mata con su venenoso pinchazo, donde las conchas marinas no solo pican sino que se persiguen, donde un tiburon puede zamparte o unas irresistibles aguas arrastrarte mar adentro. Ignorando estas amenazas, Bill Bryson viajo a Australia y se enamoro del pais. ¿Quien podria culparlo? La gente es alegre, ingeniosa y atenta; sus ciudades son seguras, limpias, casi siempre se situan cerca del agua; la cerveza esta fria y el sol brilla con frecuencia. La vida no puede ser mucho mejor que esto.

Bill Bryson se describe como un viajero renuente, pero ni siquiera cuando está en su casa, en la seguridad de su estudio, puede contener esa curiosidad que siente por el mundo que le rodea. En Una breve historia de casi todo intenta entender que ocurrio entre la Gran Explosion y el surgimiento de la civilizacion, como pasamos de la nada a lo que ahora somos. El autor aborda materias tan terriblemente aburridas como geologia, quimica y fisica, pero lo hace de forma tal que resultan comprensibles y amenas. La cuestion es como sabemos lo que sabemos. En sus viajes a traves del tiempo y del espacio Bryson se topa con una esplendida coleccion de cientificos asombradamente excentricos, competitivos, obsesivos e insensatos.

This BBC Radio 4 series is written and presented by Bill Bryson and based on his best-selling book 'Mother Tongue'. In it he romps through the history of Britain to reveal how English became such an infuriatingly complex - but ultimately world-beating - language. The subject areas covered in the course of the six episodes (originally broadcast as 'Mother Tongue') include the arrival of the Angles and the Saxons, the rules which brought order to a disorderly language, the million and one ways to have fun with the English language, the struggle with phrasal verbs (and the way things often get lost in the translation) and the future of English - does Estuary English Rule OK?

From primordial nothingness to this very moment, A Short History of Nearly Everything reports what happened and how humans figured it out. To accomplish this daunting literary task, Bill Bryson uses hundreds of sources, from popular science books to interviews with luminaries in various fields. His aim is to help people like him, who rejected stale school textbooks and dry explanations, to appreciate how we have used science to understand the smallest particles and the unimaginably vast expanses of space. With his distinctive prose style and wit, Bryson succeeds admirably. Though A Short History clocks in at a daunting 500-plus pages and covers the same material as every science book before it, it reads something like a particularly detailed novel (albeit without a plot). Each longish chapter is devoted to a topic like the age of our planet or how cells work, and these chapters are grouped into larger sections such as "The Size of the Earth" and "Life Itself." Bryson chats with experts like Richard Fortey (author of Life and Trilobite) and these interviews are charming. But it's when Bryson dives into some of science's best and most embarrassing fights-

In the bestselling, prize-winning "A Short History of Nearly Everything", Bill Bryson achieved the seemingly impossible by making the world of science both understandable and entertaining to millions of people around the globe. Now, in this glorious new illustrated edition, everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization is even more vividly brought to life with stunning full-colour photographs, drawings, portraits, and cartoons.

In One Summer Bill Bryson, one of our greatest and most beloved nonfiction writers, transports readers on a journey back to one amazing season in American life.The summer of 1927 began with one of the signature events of the twentieth century: on May 21, 1927, Charles Lindbergh became the first man to cross the Atlantic by plane nonstop, and when he landed in Le Bourget airfield near Paris, he ignited an explosion of worldwide rapture and instantly became the most famous person on the planet. Meanwhile, the titanically talented Babe Ruth was beginning his assault on the home run record, which would culminate on September 30 with his sixtieth blast, one of the most resonant and durable records in sports history. In between those dates a Queens housewife named Ruth Snyder and her corset-salesman lover garroted her husband, leading to a murder trial that became a huge tabloid sensation. Alvin Shipwreck Kelly sat atop a flagpole in Newark, New Jersey, for twelve daysa new record. The American South was clobbered by unprecedented rain and by flooding of the Mississippi basin, a great human disaster, the relief efforts for which were guided by the uncannily able and insufferably pompous Herbert Hoover. Calvin Coolidge interrupted an already leisurely presidency for an even more relaxing three-month vacation in the Black Hills of South Dakota. The gangster Al Capone tightened his grip on the illegal booze business through a gaudy and murderous reign of terror and municipal corruption. The first true talking picture, Al Jolsons The Jazz Singer, was filmed and forever changed the motion picture industry. The four most powerful central bankers on earth met in secret session on a Long Island estate and made a fateful decision that virtually guaranteed a future crash and depression.All this and much, much more transpired in that epochal summer of 1927, and Bill Bryson captures its outsized personalities, exciting events, and occasional just plain weirdness with his trademark vividness, eye for telling detail, and delicious humor. In that year America stepped out onto the world stage as the main event, and One Summer transforms it all into narrative nonfiction of the highest order.

«Les Américains ont produit plus de prix Nobel que le reste du monde réuni. Et pourtant, selon un sondage, 13% des Américaines sont incapables de dire si elles portent leur slip «sous» ou «sur» leurs

A Bill Bryson se le ocurrió un día la idea de que dedicamos mucho más tiempo a estudiar las batallas y las guerras de la historia que a reflexionar sobre aquello de lo que en realidad está hecha la historia: siglos de gente desarrollando con discrecion sus tareas diarias, comiendo, durmiendo y tratando de vivir con mas comodidades, y que la mayor parte de los principales descubrimientos de la humanidad se encuentran en la mismisima estructura de las casas que habitamos. Esto fue lo que le inspiro a iniciar un viaje por su propia casa, una vieja rectoria de Nordfolk, y a pasear de habitacion en habitacion reflexionando sobre el origen de los objetos cotidianos de la vida. En su recorrido llevo a cabo una cantidad prodigiosa de investigacion sobre la historia de absolutamente todo, desde la arquitectura a la electricidad, desde la conservacion de los alimentos a las epidemias, desde el comercio de las especias a la Torre Eiffel, desde los miriñaques a los retretes; y sobre las mentes brillantes, creativas y a menudo excentricas que encontramos detras de todo ello. Bryson aplica la misma curiosidad incontenible y el mismo ingenio irresistible que hicieron de Una breve historia de casi todo uno de los libros mas elogiados de la ultima decada, y ofrece uno de los libros mas entretenidos y esclarecedores sobre la hist...

Edited and introduced by Bill Bryson, and with contributions from Richard Dawkins, Margaret Atwood, David Attenborough, Martin Rees and Richard Fortey amongst others, this is a remarkable volume celebrating the 350th anniversary of the Royal Society. Since its inception in 1660, the Royal Society has pioneered scientific discovery and exploration. The oldest scientific academy in existence, its backbone is its Fellowship of the most eminent scientists in history including Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton and Albert Einstein. Today, its Fellows are the most influential men and women in science, many of whom have contributed to this ground-breaking volume alongside some of the world's most celebrated novelists, essayists and historians. Published to mark its 350th anniversary, this highly illustrated book celebrates the Royal Society's vast achievements in its illustrious past as well as its huge contribution to the development of modern science. With unrestricted access to the Society's archives and photographs, 'Seeing Further' shows that the history of scientific endeavour and discovery is a continuous thread running through the history of the world and of society -- and is one that continues to shape the world we live in today.

Com va anar el Big Bang? Què va fer desaparèixer els dinosaures? Quan van sorgir les primeres civilitzacions? On és el punt més llunyà de l'univers? Per què sempre ens fem preguntes sobre tot allò qu

In At Home, Bill Bryson applies the same irrepressible curiosity, irresistible wit, stylish prose and masterful storytelling that made "A Short History of Nearly Everything" one of the most lauded books of the last decade, and delivers one of the most entertaining and illuminating books ever written about the history of the way we live. Bill Bryson was struck one day by the thought that we devote a lot more time to studying the battles and wars of history than to considering what history really consists of: centuries of people quietly going about their daily business - eating, sleeping and merely endeavouring to get more comfortable. And that most of the key discoveries for humankind can be found in the very fabric of the houses in which we live. This inspired him to start a journey around his own house, an old rectory in Norfolk, wandering from room to room considering how the ordinary things in life came to be. Along the way he did a prodigious amount of research on the history of anything and everything, from architecture to electricity, from food preservation to epidemics, from the spice trade to the Eiffel Tower, from crinolines to toilets; and on the brilliant, creative and often eccentric minds behind them. And he discovered that, although there may seem to be nothing as unremarkable as our domestic lives, there is a huge amount of history, interest and excitement - and even a little danger - lurking in the corners of every home.

With Troublesome Words, journalist and bestselling travel-writer Bill Bryson gives us a clear, concise and entertaining guide to problems of English usage and spelling. Originally published as The Penguin Dictionary of Troublesome Words, it has been an indispensable companion to those who work with the written word for nearly twenty years. Now fully updated and revised, it is better than ever. So if you want to discover whether you should care about split infinitives, are cursed with an uncontrollable outbreak of commas or were wondering if that newsreader was right to say 'an historic day', this superb book is the place to find out.

Australia es el sexto país más grande del mundo y la isla más extensa. Es el más árido, yermo y climáticamente agresivo de todos los continentes habitados y no obstante está lleno de vida, mucha de la cual es mortifera. Ignorando estas amenazas, Bill Bryson se enamoro del pais. ¿Quien podria culparlo? La gente es alegre, ingeniosa, atenta; sus ciudades son seguras, limpias y casi siempre se situan cerca del agua; la cerveza esta fria y el sol brilla con frecuencia. La vida no puede ser mucho mejor que esto.

The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's savagely funny account of his journey back to his roots in small-town USA, took Britain by a storm of guffaws. It was followed by Neither Here Nor There, in which Bryson applied his unique brand of wry humour to the foibles of Continental Europe and the Europeans. Both books have rarely been absent from the bestseller lists since. Now Bryson, who moved to England seventeen years ago and settled in North Yorkshire with his family, turns an affectionate but ironic eye on his adopted country. Britain will never seem the same again. Kerry Shale has performed his acclaimed solo show The Prince of West End Avenue in the UK, Europe, South Africa, Australia, New Zealand and the United States. Other stage work includes plays such as The Normal Heart, True West and Disappeared. TV work includes Sharpe, Cracker and Tales of Narnia. His films include Yentl, RKO 281 and 102 Dalmations. Kerry has abridged and read Bill Bryson's The Lost Continent, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Small Island, Notes from a Big Country and Down Under. He has received three Sony Awards for radio acting and writing. Abridged, running time approximately 3 hours

Si te cuentan que el gusano más peludo puede dejarte seco con su venenoso pinchazo, que las conchas marinas te persiguen para picarte, o que se corre el riesgo de ser comida de tiburones, es muy posible que se prefiera no visitar un lugar asi. Ignorando estas amenazas, Bill Bryson viajo a Australia y enseguida se enamoro del pais. El caracter de la gente, la seguridad en las ciudades, la frecuencia con la que brilla el sol y... su cerveza siempre fria le cautivaron.

Bill Bryson turns away form the highways and byways of middle America, so hilariously depicted in his bestselling The Lost Continent, for a fast, exhilarating ride along the Route 66 of American language and popular culture. In Made in America, Bryson de-mythologizes his native land - explaining how a dusty desert hamlet with neither woods nor holly became Hollywood, how the Wild West wasn't won, why Americans say 'lootenant' and 'Toosday', how Americans were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up - as well as exposing the true origins of the G-string, the original $64,000 question and Dr Kellogg of cornflakes fame.