Bücher der Reihe Bryson

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.

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.

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.

Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to celebrate the green and kindly island that had become his adopted country.

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.

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.

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