Books in the Bryson series

What does history really consists of? Centuries of people quietly going about their daily business. And where did all these normal activities take place? At home. Taking a journey around the rooms of his own house, an 1851 Norfolk rectory, the author discovered surprising connections in relation to the history of the way we live.

Voted in a BBC poll the book, is an insight into all that is best and worst about Britain.

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.

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', and more.

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 author has the rare knack of being out of his depth wherever he goes - even (perhaps especially) in the land of his birth. Whether discussing the strange appeal of breakfast pizza or the jaw-slackening direness of American TV, the author brings his brand of bemused wit to bear on that strangest of phenomena - the American way of life.

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.

Bill Bryson's first travel book opened with the immortal line, 'I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.' In this deeply funny and personal memoir, he travels back in time to explore the ordinary kid he once was, in the curious world of 1950s Middle America.

In summer 1927, America had a booming stock market, a president who worked just four hours a day (and slept much of the rest), a devastating flood of the Mississippi, a sensational murder trial, and an unknown aviator named Charles Lindbergh who became the most famous man on earth.

A Short History of Nearly Everything is Bill Bryson's quest to find out 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. It's not so much about what we know, as about how we know what we know.

The author 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. This title is about 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.