Image showing a selection of books for children who love science

Books-for-children-who-love-science

Children's reading lists

23 of the best books for kids who love science

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Reading lists

The greatest walks in literature

Neil Gower's sketches for 'A Walk in the Woods' next to the final cover

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Blogs

How Neil Gower designed nearly every Bill Bryson book

Bill Bryson’s source notes for At Home and One Summer

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Features

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

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Extracts

A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0

Hugely readable and never obfuscating.

This most enjoyable of books ... A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide.

Bill Bryson has an unmatched gift for explaining the most difficult subjects in the clearest possible way.

Mr Bryson has a natural gift for clear and vivid expression. I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written.

A fascinating idea, and I can't think of many writers, other than Bryson, who would do it this well. It's the sort of book I would have devoured as a teenager. It might well turn unsuspecting young readers into scientists.

A genuinely useful and readable book. There is a phenomenal amount of fascinating information packed between its covers ... A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again

The very book I have been looking for most of my life... Bryson wears his knowledge with aplomb and a lot of very good jokes.

Of course, there are people much better qualified than Bill Bryson to attempt a project of this magnitude. None of them, however, can write fluent Brysonese, which, as pretty much the entire Western reading public now knows, is an appealing mixture of self-deprecation, wryness and punnery.

Lucid, thoughtful and, above all, entertaining.

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He is the author of eighteen books and holds the record of having the most bestsellers of any author on the Sunday Times bestseller list in the last fifty years. A Short History of Nearly Everything, first published in 2003, spent 106 weeks in the chart, won both the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize and is the biggest-selling popular science book of the twenty-first century. 
 
Bill Bryson is a former Chancellor of Durham University and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.

In this fully revised and updated edition of the best-selling popular science book of the 21st century, Bill Bryson makes complex subjects clear and compelling for everyone with an interest in the world around them. 
 
NOW FULLY REVISED AND UPDATED. 
 
'Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.' Economist 
 
'Truly impressive...It's hard to imagine a better rough guide to science.' Guardian 
 
Bill Bryson can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 is the result of his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization – how we got from being nothing at all to what we are today. Now fully updated to reflect the many scientific discoveries in the last twenty years since this book was first published, it explains among much else: 
<ul><li>why Pluto is no longer a planet</li><li>how the number of moons in the solar system has more than doubled in 20 years</li><li>how scientists used advances in genetics to discover previously unknown species of early humans</li><li>why we still don't know what most of the universe is made of</li><li>how the little Higgs boson transformed physics</li></ul>This journey through time and space will inform a new generation of readers, young and old, as well as those who read this book on first publication with a new perspective based on what we know now. 
 
Written in his inimitable style, Bryson makes complex subjects fascinating and accessible to everyone with an interest in the world around them. 
 
A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 reveals the world in a whole new way. 
 
Praise for A Short History of Nearly Everything: 
 
‘I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written.’ Sunday Telegraph 
 
‘Bill Bryson has an unmatched gift for explaining the most difficult subjects in the clearest possible way.’ Mail on Sunday 
 
'A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide' The Times 
 
‘Hugely readable and never obfuscating.’ Sunday Times 
 
‘A genuinely useful and readable book... A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again’ Daily Express 
 
‘The very book I have been looking for most of my life... Bryson wears his knowledge with aplomb and a lot of very good jokes.’ Daily Mail 
 
‘Destined to become a modern classic of science writing’ The New York Times

An illustrated edition of the bestselling book about the English language

A Really Short History of Words

Adapted from Mother Tongue this stunningly illustrated book by Bill Bryson tells the story of English, from the first words ever spoken to the very first dictionaries. 
 
 Perfect for ages 8 to 80! 
 
 Every day, you do something incredible, and I bet you barely ever think about it: you speak. But have you ever wondered why the English language turned out like it did? 
 
 If so, this is the book for you. It will also answer some VERY important questions . . . 
 
 ? Why do we have the Vikings to thank for words like glitter and sky?? Why did goodbye used to be god be with you?? Why did LOL originally mean little old ladies?? And why did no one know what majestic meant until Shakespeare came along? 
 
 In this epic journey through words, rhymes - and even a few jokes - Bill Bryson will teach you how the English language came to be (clue: lots of invasions) and what makes it a rich and beautiful thing (lots of Shakespeare). 
 
 Get ready . . . because the story of the English language is an EXTRAORDINARY one.

Every day, you do something incredible, and I bet you barely ever think about it: you speak. 
 
Ever wondered why the English language turned out how it did? 
 
Why do we have so many different words for just one thing? 
 
And why are so many words spelt the same but sound different? 
 
In this beautifully illustrated journey through word and rhyme - and even a few jokes - Bill Bryson will teach you how the English language came to be (clue: lots of invasions) and what makes it a rich and beautiful thing (lots of Shakespeare). 
 
Get ready . . . because the story of the English language is an EXTRAORDINARY one.

An illustrated edition of the bestselling book about our incredible anatomy

A Really Short Journey Through the Body

'A sure-fire winner . . . sparkles with interest and excitement throughout' - Guardian Best Children's Books of 2023 
 
 You’ll spend your WHOLE LIFE in your body. So it’s only fair you know how it works, right?This book will teach you EVERYTHING you need to know about the machine that is YOU. From your astonishing brain to your hard-working heart.Get ready for the BIG questions, like: 
<ul><li>How many muscles do you move playing Fortnight? (A twitch of a thumb on the controller uses TEN muscles)</li><li>Are chillis actually HOT? (Short answer: no. We’ve been fooled by a plant.)</li><li>How far can we sneeze? (Your sneeze droplets can reach up to eight meters – which means you could sneeze over an entire class.)</li></ul> 
You’ll also meet people like Chevalier Jackson, who collected things that people had swallowed by accident (for science, of course). And learn about why we poo (and why it smells). 
 
 Packed with facts, history and humour, this beautifully illustrated book, from global bestselling science and history author Bill Bryson (ask your mum, he’s the one with the beard), will help you understand the secrets to our bodies and brains. 
 
 'Offers children a series of fascinating scientific facts' - Daily Telegraph

Offers children a series of fascinating scientific facts

A sure fire winner . . . sparkles with interest and excitement throughout

We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it. 
 
Want to know why the skin is the biggest organ? 
 
Why our brains can see into the future? 
 
Or why your eyes are back to front? 
 
Packed full of facts, big numbers (such as the amount of microbes that make you) and small numbers (the size of those very tiny microbes) all in full-colour. 
 
This non-fiction book, packed with wonder from the globally bestselling Bill Bryson is a head-to-toe tour of the most amazing thing about you - YOUR BODY!

Divided by a Common Language, Journeys in English and more

The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection

An anthology of BBC Radio documentaries featuring the bestselling author 
 
Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes. 
 
This sparkling collection features seven BBC Radio programmes that collectively illuminate his personal passions. In The Art of Travel, he talks to Annette Kobak about his memorable journeys around the USA; while in the 6-part series Divided by a Common Language, he scours American history in an attempt to find out why Americans talk and behave differently from British people. Journeys in English, based on his acclaimed book Mother Tongue, sees him romping through the history of Britain in six episodes, to reveal how English became the complex yet world-beating language it is today. 
 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park finds Bill heading out across the royal park in the company of Clare Balding, as he discusses his love for walking and exploring. As a castaway on Desert Island Discs, he shares the soundtrack of his life with Sue Lawley; and in With Great Pleasure, he selects some of his favourite writing, including Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, a Hardy Boys classic and Three Men in a Boat. Finally, in Bookclub, he chats to James Naughtie and an audience of readers about A Short History of Nearly Everything. 
 
Contents 
 
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson 
Divided by a Common Language 
Journeys in English 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson 
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson 
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson 
Bookclub: Bill Bryson 
 
Production credits 
 
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson 
Presented by Annette Kobak 
Produced by Kate McAII 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 27 January 1991 
 
Divided by a Common Language 
Presented by Bill Bryson 
Produced by Brian King 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 July-2 September 1995 
 
Journeys in English 
Written and presented by Bill Bryson 
Produced by Brian King 
 
First broadcast as Mother Tongue on BBC Radio 4, 13 December 1997-17 January 1998 
 
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson 
Presented by Clare Balding 
Produced by Lucy Lunt 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24 September 2015 
 
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson 
Presented by Sue Lawley 
Produced by Angie Nehring 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 January 1999 
 
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson 
Readers: Kerry Shale and Bill Wallis 
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 September 1999 
 
Bookclub: Bill Bryson 
Presented by James Naughtie 
Produced by Dymphna Flynn 
 
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 6 February 2005 
 
©2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd (P)2023 BBC Studios Distribution Ltd

Bill Bryson (Author, Reader) Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He is the author of eighteen books and holds the record of having the most bestsellers of any author on the Sunday Times bestseller list in the last fifty years. A Short History of Nearly Everything, first published in 2003, spent 106 weeks in the chart, won both the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize and is the biggest-selling popular science book of the twenty-first century. 
 
Bill Bryson is a former Chancellor of Durham University and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.

A Really Short History of Nearly Everything

Perfect for ages 8 to 80! 
 
Adapted from A Short History of Nearly Everything, this stunningly illustrated book from Bill Bryson takes us from the Big Bang to the dawn of science, and everything in between! 
 
Ever wondered how we got from nothing to something? 
Or thought about how we can weigh the earth? 
Or wanted to reach the edge of the universe? 
 
Uncover the mysteries of time, space and life on earth in this extraordinary book - a journey from the centre of the planet, to the dawn of the dinosaurs, and everything in between. 
 
And discover our own incredible journey, from single cell to civilisation, including the brilliant (and sometimes very bizarre) scientists who helped us find out the how and why. 
 
The ideal book for curious young readers everywhere. 
 
************************************************************************ 
 
Reviews for A Short History of Nearly Everything: 
 
'It's the sort of book I would have devoured as a teenager. It might well turn unsuspecting young readers into scientists.' Evening Standard 
 
'I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written' Sunday Telegraph 
 
 'A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again' Daily Express 
 
 'The very book I have been looking for most of my life' Daily Mail

This history of life, the universe and everything in between is entertaining and Bryson is an excellent guide. Great for the kids and good for parents, too

Ever wondered how we got from nothing to something? 
Or thought about how we can weigh the earth? 
Or wanted to reach the edge of the universe? 
 
Uncover the mysteries of time, space and life on earth in this extraordinary book - a journey from the centre of the planet to the dawn of the dinosaurs, and everything in between. 
 
And discover our own incredible journey, from single cell to civilisation, including the brilliant (and sometimes very bizarre) scientists who helped us find out the how and why.

A Guide for Occupants

The Body

#1 Sunday Times bestseller in both hardback and paperback, this head-to-toe tour of the marvel that is the human body is as compulsively readable as it is comprehensive. Bryson at his very best, it is a must-read owner's manual for everybody.

A directory of wonders.  Extraordinary stories about the heart, lungs, genitals ... plus some anger and life advice – all delivered in the inimitable Bryson style

Remarkable ... Every page is dense with scientific facts written as vividly as a thriller, as well as answers to conundrums such as why we don’t fall out of bed when we are asleep ... It is woven through with the kind of human stories that Bryson has made his trademark.

Readable and useful ... witty, jargon-free prose that glides you through 400 pages. It’s fun to read because it’s not just comprehensive, but quirky.

SCIENCE BOOK OF THE YEAR 2019: 'so packed with arresting facts (you eat 60 tons of food in a lifetime) and unlikely anecdotes (such as Isambard Kingdom Brunel's six weeks with a half-sovereign lodged in his throat) that you barely notice the sheer volume of anatomical knowledge you're digesting ... makes complex subjects simple and eminently entertaining.'

It is a feat of narrative skill to bake so many facts into an entertaining and nutritious book..where Byrson really shines is in his imaginative glosses on the facts he has collected.

The extraordinary story of what we are made of and how we work ... This revelatory book reads as captivatingly as a thriller.

Through anecdotes about scientific history and startling facts that seem too extraordinary to be true—the DNA in one person, if stretched out, would measure billions of miles and reach beyond Pluto—Bryson draws the reader into his subject. ... Bryson’s tone is both informative and inviting, encouraging the reader, throughout this exemplary work, to share the sense of wonder he expresses at how the body is constituted and what it is capable of.

Bryson rummages about in our vital organs, emerging with a parade of fascinating facts.

‘Classic, wry, gleeful Bryson… richly interesting… an entertaining and absolutely fact-rammed book.  If it sells hundreds of thousands of copies, like the last one, it will be no bad thing.’

[Bill] takes us with him, wondering at the complex functions of the tongue, seeing him stick a finger in the aorta…The book’s a bestseller.

There is not an organ Bryson describes that is not illuminated by a fun fact or unlikely anecdote.

Bryson tackles the body in an amusing, fact-filled guide

Written with his trademark wit and insight

As ever, the bestselling writer takes a familiar subject and delivers one revelation after another

A comforting compendium of fascinating facts

The brook bristles with data…but the star turns are Bryson's wry forays into the histories of 
neuroscience, genetics, anatomy and immunology.

Stuffed with enthralling, often mystifying facts.

BOOKS OF THE YEAR - 'You'll never look in the mirror the same way again'

One of the strengths of Bryson’s delightful new book... is that it reveals the thousands of rarely acknowledged tasks our body takes care of as we go about our day

A joy to read ... every paragraph contains at least one startling, even awe-inspiring fact ... Infused with an infectious sense of wonder at the miraculousness of it all.

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. His bestselling books include The Road to Little Dribbling, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, One Summer and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. In a national poll, Notes from a Small Island was voted the book that best represents Britain. His acclaimed work of popular science, A Short History of Nearly Everything, won the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize, and is the biggest selling non-fiction book of the 21st century. The Body: A Guide for Occupants was shortlisted for the Royal Society Science Book Prize and is an international bestseller. 
Bill Bryson was Chancellor of Durham University 2005-2011. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.

#1 Bestseller in both hardback and paperback: SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2020 ROYAL SOCIETY INSIGHT INVESTMENT SCIENCE BOOK PRIZE 
_______ 
 
'A directory of wonders.' - The Guardian 
 
'Jaw-dropping.' - The Times 
 
'Classic, wry, gleeful Bryson...an entertaining and absolutely fact-rammed book.' - The Sunday Times 
 
'It is a feat of narrative skill to bake so many facts into an entertaining and nutritious book.' - The Daily Telegraph 
_______ 
 
'We spend our whole lives in one body and yet most of us have practically no idea how it works and what goes on inside it. The idea of the book is simply to try to understand the extraordinary contraption that is us.' 
 
Bill Bryson sets off to explore the human body, how it functions and its remarkable ability to heal itself. Full of extraordinary facts and astonishing stories The Body: A Guide for Occupants is a brilliant, often very funny attempt to understand the miracle of our physical and neurological make up. 
 
A wonderful successor to A Short History of Nearly Everything, this new book is an instant classic. It will have you marvelling at the form you occupy, and celebrating the genius of your existence, time and time again. 
 
'What I learned is that we are infinitely more complex and wondrous, and often more mysterious, than I had ever suspected. There really is no story more amazing than the story of us.' Bill Bryson

An Informal History of American English

Made In America

An informal history of the English language in America by the inimitable Bill Bryson.

‘Funny, wise, learned and compulsive’ - GQ 
 
 Bill Bryson turns away from travelling the highways and byways of middle America, so hilariously depicted in his bestselling The Lost Continent, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid and Notes from a Big Country, for a fast, exhilarating ride along the Route 66 of American language and popular culture. 
 
In Made in America, Bryson tells the story of how American arose out of the English language, and along the way, 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 they were eating junk food long before the word itself was cooked up - as well as exposing the true origins of the words G-string, blockbuster, poker and snafu. 
 
‘A tremendously sassy work, full of zip, pizzazz and all those other great American qualities’ 
Will Self, Independent on Sunday

Icons of England

England: our favourite things, by well-known names led by Bill Bryson, Michael Palin and  Eric Clapton.

This celebration of the English countryside does not only focus on the rolling green landscapes and magnificent monuments that set England apart from the rest of the world. Many of the contributors bring their own special touch, presenting a refreshingly eclectic variety of personal icons, from pub signs to seaside piers, from cattle grids to canal boats, and from village cricket to nimbies. 
 
First published as a lavish colour coffeetable book, this new expanded paperback edition has double the original number of contributions from many celebrities including Bill Bryson, Michael Palin, Eric Clapton, Bryan Ferry, Sebastian Faulks, Kate Adie, Kevin Spacey, Gavin Pretor-Pinney, Richard Mabey , Simon Jenkins, John Sergeant, Benjamin Zephaniah, Joan Bakewell, Antony Beevor, Libby Purves, Jonathan Dimbleby, and many more: and a new preface by HRH Prince Charles.

A Short History of Nearly Everything

The incomparable Bill Bryson travels through time and space to introduce us to the world, the universe and everything in this groundbreaking book, the best selling popular science book of the 21st century.

The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century and has sold over 2 million copies. 
 
'Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.' Economist 
'Truly impressive...It's hard to imagine a better rough guide to science.' Guardian 
'A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide' The Times 
 
Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. 
 
Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. As a result, A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.

Mr Bryson has a natural gift for clear and vivid expression. I doubt that a better book for the layman about the findings of modern science has been written

A fascinating idea, and I can't think of many writers, other than Bryson, who would do it this well. It's the sort of book I would have devoured as a teenager. It might well turn unsuspecting young readers into scientists. And the famous, slightly cynical humour is always there

A genuinely useful and readable book. There is a phenomenal amount of fascinating information packed between its covers ... A thoroughly enjoyable, as well as educational, experience. Nobody who reads it will ever look at the world around them in the same way again

Of course, there are people much better qualified than Bill Bryson to attempt a project of this magnitude. None of them, however, can write fluent Brysonese, which, as pretty much the entire Western reading public now knows, is an appealing mixture of self-deprecation, wryness and punnery

The very book I have been looking for most of my life... Bryson wears his knowledge with aplomb and a lot of very good jokes

Impressive in his terse concreteness ... Hugely readable and never obfuscating

This most enjoyable of books ... A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide

Bill Bryson has an unmatched gift for explaining the most difficult subjects in the clearest possible way. If, like me, your brain tends to go numb when faced with terms like plate tectonics, genome, relativity theory, big bang and particle physics, then it is more than likely that A Short History of Nearly Everything is the cure you have always been looking for...It deserves to sell as many copies as there are protons contained in the full stop that ends this review (at least 500,000,000,000)

Lucid, thoughtful and, above all, entertaining

I don't doubt that with A Short History of Nearly Everything he is plugging a gap in the market. As a result, several hundred thousand people will end up knowing a little bit more about the universe than they did before

The ultimate eye-opening journey through time and space, A Short History of Nearly Everything is the biggest-selling popular science book of the 21st century and has sold over 2 million copies. 
 
 'Possibly the best scientific primer ever published.' Economist 
'Truly impressive...It's hard to imagine a better rough guide to science.' Guardian 
 'A travelogue of science, with a witty, engaging, and well-informed guide' The Times 
 
 Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely at home he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. A Short History of Nearly Everything is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization - how we got from there, being nothing at all, to here, being us. 
 
 Bill Bryson's challenge is to take subjects that normally bore the pants off most of us, like geology, chemistry and particle physics, and see if there isn't some way to render them comprehensible to people who have never thought they could be interested in science. As a result, A Short History of Nearly Everything reveals the world in a way most of us have never seen it before.

Bill Bryson's African Diary

Bryson travels to Kenya in support of CARE International and brings his inimitable humorous and humane view to Africa.

Bill Bryson goes to Kenya at the invitation of CARE International, the charity dedicated to working with local communities to eradicate poverty around the world. Kenya, generally regarded as the cradle of humankind, is a land of stunning landscapes, famous game reserves, and a vibrant culture, but it also has many serious problems, including refugees, AIDS, drought and grinding poverty. It also provides plenty to worry a nervous traveller like Bill Bryson: hair-raising rides in light aircraft, tropical diseases, snakes, insects and large predators. 
 
Bryson casts his inimitable eye on a continent new to him, and the resultant diary, though short in length, contains all his trademark laugh-out-loud wit, wry observation and curious insight. 
 
All the author’s royalties from this book, as well as all profits, will go to CARE International.

Troublesome Words

What is the difference between mean and median, blatant and flagrant, flout and flaunt? Is it whodunnit or whodunit? Do you know? Are you sure? 
 
With Troublesome Words, journalist and bestselling travel-writer Bill Bryson gives us a clear, concise and entertaining guide to the problems of English usage and spelling that has been an indispensable companion to those who work with the written word for over twenty years. 
 
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.

Combines the virtues of a first class work of reference with the pleasure of a good read

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, and grew up there, but has spent most of his adult life in Britain. He has worked for a number of newspapers, including The Times and the Independent. His books on the English language include Mother Tongue and Troublesome Words, both published by Penguin. 
 
 Bill Bryson is the author of several bestsellers including The Lost Continent, Neither Here Nor There, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Big Country, Down Under, A Short History of Nearly Everything, One Summer: America 1927 and his memoir, The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. His most recent bestseller is The Road to Little Dribbling.

The Story of the English Language

Mother Tongue

'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' 
 
Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. 
 
Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.

The sort of linguistics I like, anecdotal, full of revelations, and with not one dull paragraph

A gold mine of language-anecdote, information, curiosity. A suprise on every page... enthralling

Delightful, amusing and provoking... A joyful celebration of our wonderful language, which is packed with curiosities and enlightenment on every page

A delightful survey - though with its good humour, wealth of anecdote, and boyish enthusiasm, "romp" would be a better word.

'More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to...' 
 
Only Bill Bryson could make a book about the English language so entertaining. With his boundless enthusiasm and restless eye for the absurd, this is his astonishing tour of English. From its mongrel origins to its status as the world's most-spoken tongue; its apparent simplicity to its deceptive complexity; its vibrant swearing to its uncertain spelling and pronunciation, Bryson covers all this as well as the many curious eccentricities that make it as maddening to learn as it is flexible to use. 
 
Bill Bryson's classic Mother Tongue is a highly readable and hilarious tale of how English came to be the world's language.

More Notes from a Small Island

The Road to Little Dribbling

The number one Sunday Times bestseller: Bill Bryson’s first  travel book for fifteen years – a brand new journey around Britain.

Warm, funny, thoughtful, sometimes grumpy. An absolute joy. 
+ in Country Life: 
I snorted with laughter…The Road to Little Dribbling is consistently and unendingly fabulous…I intend on buying a copy for everyone I know.

Fans should expect to chuckle, snort, snigger, grunt, laugh out loud and shake with recognition…a clotted cream and homemade jam scone of a treat.

Is it the funniest travel book I’ve read all year? Of course it is.

There were moments when I snorted out loud with laughter while reading this book in public…He can be as gloriously silly as ever.

Bryson has no equal. He combines the charm and humour of Michael Palin with the cantankerousness of Victor Meldrew and the result is a benign intolerance that makes for a gloriously funny read.

Everybody loves Bill Bryson, don’t they? He’s clever, witty, entertaining, a great companion…his research is on show here, producing insight, wisdom and startling nuggets of information…Bill Bryson and his new book are the dog’s bollocks.

At its best as the history of a love affair, the very special relationship between Bryson and Britain. We remain lucky to have him.

The truly great thing about Bryson is that he really cares and is insanely curious…Reading his work is like going on holiday with the members of Monty Python.

At last, Bill Bryson has got back to what he does best - penning travel books that educate, inform and will have you laughing out loud...I was chuckling away by page four and soaking up his historic facts to impress my mates with. Sure to be a bestseller.

Stuffed with eye-opening facts and statistics..... Bryson's charm and wit continue to float off the page....Recognising oneself is part of the pleasure of reading Bryson's mostly affable rants about Britain and Britishness.

We have a tradition in this country of literary teddy bears – John Betjeman and Alan Bennett among them – whose cutting critiques of the absurdities and hypocrisies of the British people are carried out with such wit and good humour that they become national treasures. Bill Bryson is American but is now firmly established in the British teddy bear pantheon…The fact that this wonderful writer can unerringly catalogue all our faults and is still happy to put up with us should make every British reader’s chest swell with pride.

The observation, the wit, the geniality of Bryson’s inimitable words illuminate ever chapter.

His millions of readers will probably enjoy this just as much as its predecessor.

Bill Bryson is a wonder. Here is a man who can write a page about ordering a cheese sandwich - and make the reader care about the sandwich...the result is a grumpy paean of praise to a place we've grown used to doing down...he reminds the reader what an extraordinary place this island is...He does not mention in his new book that perhaps one of the things that makes his adopted country so remarkable is the willingness of its people to accord the status of Living National Treasure to a fellow from Iowa.

We go to him less for insights – though there are plenty of these – and more for the pleasure of his company. And he can be very funny indeed. Almost every page has a line worth quoting.

The funniest travel book I’ve read all year, if only for the number of gags per page.

Bryson is at his best when striking a melancholy tone, wandering yet another Identikit high street despairing at the loss of community and individual character. A delightful read.

He still loves us, indeed he has become one of us. The prologue on the idiocy of the citizenship test is worth the cover price alone.

Mr Bryson is an entertaining travel companion with a keen eye for the absurd . . . He writes lyrically on the monuments at Stonehenge and Avebury. He is great on the joy of walking through the English countryside, bemoaning the loss of hedgerows, fields and 'verges full of nodding flowers and birdsong'.

The sheer number of gags per page make it an assault on the funny bone.

WINNER: NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC TRAVELLER READER AWARD FOR BEST TRAVEL BOOK OF THE YEAR 2016 
WINNER: BOOKS ARE MY BAG READER AWARD FOR BEST AUTOBIOGRAPHY OR BIOGRAPHY 2016 
 
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country. The hilarious book that resulted, Notes from a Small Island, was taken to the nation’s heart and became the bestselling travel book ever, and was also voted in a BBC poll the book that best represents Britain.Now, to mark the twentieth anniversary of that modern classic, Bryson makes a brand-new journey round Britain to see what has changed. 
 
Following (but not too closely) a route he dubs the Bryson Line, from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath, by way of places that many people never get to at all, Bryson sets out to rediscover the wondrously beautiful, magnificently eccentric, endearingly unique country that he thought he knew but doesn’t altogether recognize any more. Yet, despite Britain’s occasional failings and more or less eternal bewilderments, Bill Bryson is still pleased to call our rainy island home. And not just because of the cream teas, a noble history, and an extra day off at Christmas. 
 
Once again, with his matchless homing instinct for the funniest and quirkiest, his unerring eye for the idiotic, the endearing, the ridiculous and the scandalous, Bryson gives us an acute and perceptive insight into all that is best and worst about Britain today.

Journey into the American Dream

Notes From A Big Country

Bill Bryson's hilarious return to live the American Dream.

Delightful bite-size essays that exude affection while debunking the ridiculous with wonderful succinctness... This is not a book to be read in a single sitting. It is one to be savoured

Bill Bryson's answer to Alistair Cooke's Letter From America...not only hilarious but also insightful and informative

Bryson is great when explaining the idiosyncracies of America to middle England and making it funny... He is both serious and contemtuously funny

Bill Bryson has the rare knack of being out of his depth wherever he goes - even (perhaps especially) in the land of his birth. This became all too apparent when, after nearly two decades in England, the world's best-loved travel writer upped sticks with Mrs Bryson, little Jimmy et al. and returned to live in the country he had left as a youth. 
 
Of course there were things Bryson missed about Blighty but any sense of loss was countered by the joy of rediscovering some of the forgotten treasures of his childhood: the glories of a New England autumn; the pleasingly comical sight of oneself in shorts; and motel rooms where you can generally count on being awakened in the night by a piercing shriek and the sound of a female voice pleading, 'Put the gun down, Vinnie, I'll do anything you say.' 
 
Whether discussing the strange appeal of breakfast pizza or the jaw-slackening direness of American TV, Bill Bryson brings his inimitable brand of bemused wit to bear on that strangest of phenomena - the American way of life.

A Short History of Private Life

At Home

The irresistible book by Bill Bryson which does for the history of the way we live what A Short History of Nearly Everything did for science.

A work of constant delight and discovery. Bryson's wit is both dry and charmingly goofy. His great skill is to make daily life simultaneously strange and familiar, and in so doing, help us to recognise ourselves. At Home is a treasure: don't leave home without it.

Enchanting...a book about reinventing the ordinary, and finding the extraordinary in the humdrum business of living...Bryson tackled science in his brilliant A Short History of Nearly Everything. This new book could as easily be categorised as 'a short history of nearly everything else'...extraordinarily entertaining.

The much-loved writer takes the attention to detail that made A Short History of Nearly Everything such a fantastic guide to all things science, and applies it to our homes. Written in his laid-back style, this is a wonderful celebration of what makes a house a home.

Quite as ambitious as his A Short History of Nearly Everything. This is a genuinely compelling book...a kind of layman's encyclopaedia full of 'did you know' moments...This companionable volume is as dense as a rich fruit cake and, by the same measure, rewarding, too.

A charming read that blends scholarship with warm writing and provides an endless source of banter for dinner parties.

The method is to amass a dazzling number of facts and findings from disparate sources...riveting...arguing with Bryson is part of the enjoyment of reading him, and accompanying him across swathes of layered history.

By rummaging down the back of the nation's sofa, Bryson has come up with a light-hearted and endlessly fascinating story...What you want from him is his wry humour and ability to raise a quizzical eyebrow at the sheer oddness of the human race.

Bryson hoards facts. He can't resist a well-turned story...An idiosyncratic sweep through the makings of modernity.

At Home takes us on a tour not merely of Bryson's house but of the amazingly well-stocked mind of a man who can see a world in a grain of sand. He addresses his readers as if they were welcome visitors to his home whom he is eager both to inform and to entertain; he is a guide of inexhaustible patience, good humour, and irresistible enthusiasm.

Entertaining, fact-packed...He is a cheery,idiosyncratic guide, eclectic rather than scholarly, a true populariser. At Home will have every reader eyeing home rather differently.

By now, Bryson is certainly famous enough to have got away with a a far less bulging compendium. Instead, on our behalf, he's been through those hundreds of books (508 according to the bibliography)....He's then extracted their most arresting material and turned the result into a book that, for all its winning randomness, is not just hugely readable but a genuine pageturner...None of these things, needless to say, are as easy as Bryson in his ever-genial way makes them seem.

Effortlessly digestible prose, wry self-deprecating humour and lightly-worn erudition...everyone will find something to surprise them.

Join this amiable tour guide as he wanders through his house...it takes a very particular kind of thoughtfulness, as well as a bold temperament, to stuff all this research into a mattress that's supportive enough to loll about on while pondering the real subject of this book- the development of the modern world....Bryson's enthusiasm brightens any dull corner. I recommend that you hand over control and simply enjoy the ride. You'll be given a delightful smattering of information about everything but, weirdly, the kitchen sink.

For blockbuster Bill Bryson, no subject is too vast...So he could write a history of the world without leaving home. And very genially and quirkily he does...His theme is how nowadays we take home comfort for granted, but how recently we obtained it...he is very good company indeed.

Delightful...Considering our homes means a dash through history, politics, science, sex, and dozens of other fields.  If this book doesn't supply you with five years' worth of dinner conversation, you're not paying attention.

Compelling, quirky and wonderfully original.

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.

Travels Through my Childhood

The Life And Times Of The Thunderbolt Kid

Bill Bryson on his most personal journey yet: into his own childhood in America's Mid-West.

From one of our most beloved and bestselling authors, a vivid, nostalgic, and utterly hilarious memoir of growing up in the 1950s. 
 
Born in 1951 in the middle of the United States, Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson is perfectly positioned to mine his memories of a totally all-American childhood for 24 carat memoir gold. Like millions of his generation, Bryson grew up with a rich fantasy life as a superhero. In his case, he ran around the house wearing a jersey with a thunderbolt on it and a towel round his neck that served as his cape, leaping tall buildings in a single bound and vanquishing evildoers (in his head) as The Thunderbolt Kid. 
 
Using his childhood fantasy life as a springboard, Bill Bryson recreates the life of his family in the 1950s in all its transcendent normality. In a period that saw the inexorable rise of television, the opening of Disneyland, the testing of the atomic bomb, and the explosion of choice in everything from food to cars, Bill Bryson's days followed in reassuringly cosy succession, enlivened by modest triumphs and disasters. 
 
Warm and laugh-out-loud funny, The Rise and Fall of the Thunderbolt Kid is a modern classic, full of Bill Bryson's inimitable, pitch-perfect observations. 
........................................................................................................................................... 
'Seriously funny' The Sunday Times 
 
'A funny, effortlessly readable, quietly enchanted memoir' Daily Mail 
 
'A wittily incisive book about innocence, and its limits, but in no sense an innocent book... Like Alan Bennett, another ironist posing as a sentimentalist, Bryson can play the teddy-bear and then deliver a sudden, grizzly-style swipe' Independent 
 
'Outlandishly and improbably entertaining... inevitably [I] would be reduced to body-racking, tear-inducing, de-couching laughter' New York Times 
 
'Characteristic mixture of bemused wit, acerbic astonishment and sweet benevolence... His evocation of an era is near perfect: tender, hilarious and true' The Times

A wittily incisive book about innocence, and its limits, but in no sense an innocent book... Like Alan Bennett, another ironist posing as a sentimentalist, Bryson can play the teddy-bear and then deliver a sudden, grizzly-style swipe... might tell us as much about the oddities of the American way as a dozen think-tanks

A funny, effortlessly readable, quietly enchanted memoir... Bryson also provides a quirky social history of America... he always manages to slam on the brakes with a good joke just when things might get sentimental

Characteristic mixture of bemused wit, acerbic astonishment and sweet benevolence... Evocation of an era is near perfect: tender, hilarious and true

Outlandishly and improbably entertaining... inevitably [I] would be reduced to body-racking, tear-inducing, de-couching laughter

Hilarious... not your typical travel writer

Not only hilarious but also insightful and informative

Always witty and sometimes hilarious... wonderfully funny and touching

Travels in Europe

Neither Here, Nor There

Bill Bryson's second, achingly funny travel book, retracing his own steps as a student backpacking through Europe, twenty years later.

A breezy and entertaining account of what it is like to be utterly at sea in a continent most of his readers will regard as familiar

Hugely funny (not snigger-snigger funny, but great-big-belly-laugh-till-you-cry funny)

Undoubtedly the most enjoyable travel book of the year

This is the travel book that every Inter-Rail vagrant would love to write; the Animal House of the genre

Bill Bryson’s first travel book, The Lost Continent, was unanimously acclaimed as one of the funniest books in years. In Neither Here nor There he brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student twenty years before. 
 
Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant or window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

Travels in a Sunburned Country

Down Under

Bill Bryson's travels in a sunburned country: Australia will never look the same again.

Bryson makes you laugh out loud...Down Under is filled with quirky stories',

The thing that Bryson most loves about Australia - its "effortlessly dry, direct way of viewing the world" - is, in fact, his own. They're a perfect fit

Bryson is the perfect travelling companion... when it comes to travel's peculiars the man still has no peers

Bill Bryson is a very talented writer and an enormously funny and perceptive one. He is an artist who needs a big canvas. Australia has provided this. He's painted a masterpiece in travel literature

He arrives at his destination, finds a hotel, checks in, meanders around the neighbourhood, visits any museums or public monuments he happens to encounter, has a couple of drinks, eavesdrops on a conversation or two, then goes to bed. A year later, people on three continents are hospitalised as a result of ruptures caused by laughing so hard at his account of the experience

It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still Australia teems with life – a large portion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. 
 
Ignoring such dangers – and yet curiously obsessed by them – Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging: their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water; the food is excellent; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn’t get much better than this…

Travels in Small-Town America

The Lost Continent

Bill Bryson's very first travel book, a sidesplittingly funny road trip around small town America.

Hilarious... he can be suave, sarcastic and very funny... not your typical travel writer

Funny as this wonderful book is, it is also a serious indictment of the American way of life and the direction in which it is going... he is genuinely shocked, as we are, by the statistics of affluence, poverty, crime and culture that he drops in hither and thither

A very funny performance, littered with wonderful lines and memorable images

‘I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to’ 
 
And, as soon as Bill Bryson was old enough, he left. Des Moines couldn’t hold him, but it did lure him back. After ten years in England, he returned to the land of his youth, and drove almost 14,000 miles in search of a mythical small town called Amalgam, the kind of trim and sunny place where the films of his youth were set. Instead, his search led him to Anywhere, USA; a lookalike strip of gas stations, motels and hamburger outlets populated by lookalike people with a penchant for synthetic fibres. He discovered a continent that was doubly lost; lost to itself because blighted by greed, pollution, mobile homes and television; lost to him because he had become a stranger in his own land. 
 
Bryson’s acclaimed first success, The Lost Continent is a classic of travel literature – hilariously, stomach-achingly, funny, yet tinged with heartache – and the book that first staked Bill Bryson’s claim as the most beloved writer of his generation.

The World's Funniest Travel Writer Takes a Hike

A Walk In The Woods

Now a major film starring Robert Redford, Nick Nolte and Emma Thompson: the funniest travel writer in the world takes a hike.

'Short of doing it yourself, the best way of escaping into nature is to read a book like A Walk in the Woods.' New York Times 
 
In the company of his friend Stephen Katz (last seen in the bestselling Neither Here nor There), Bill Bryson set off to hike the Appalachian Trail, the longest continuous footpath in the world. 
 
Ahead lay almost 2,200 miles of remote mountain wilderness filled with bears, moose, bobcats, rattlesnakes, poisonous plants, disease-bearing tics, the occasional chuckling murderer and - perhaps most alarming of all - people whose favourite pastime is discussing the relative merits of the external-frame backpack. 
 
 Facing savage weather, merciless insects, unreliable maps and a fickle companion whose profoundest wish was to go to a motel and watch The X-Files, Bryson gamely struggled through the wilderness to achieve a lifetime's ambition - not to die outdoors. 
 
A Walk in the Woods is now a major feature film starring Robert Redford, Emma Thompson and Nick Offerman.

Short of doing it yourself, the best way of escaping into nature is to read a book like A Walk in the Woods... Mr Bryson has met this challenge with zest and considerable humor... a funny book, full of dry humor... the reader is rarely anything but exhilarated

Irreverent, wildly funny, crowded with anecdotes and observation

Bill Bryson

Books by Bill Bryson

Series by Bill Bryson

Bryson

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23 of the best books for kids who love science

The greatest walks in literature

How Neil Gower designed nearly every Bill Bryson book

Bill Bryson’s source notes for At Home and One Summer

The Road to Little Dribbling by Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson on the miraculous human body

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