What is the difference between cant and jargon, or assume and presume? What is a fandango? How do you spell supersede? Is it hippy or hippie? This title includes a selection of spellings and usages, covering such head-scratchers as capitalization, plurals, abbreviations and foreign names and phrases.

BRYSON''S DICTIONARY: FOR WRITERS AND EDITORS

"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. Travelling around thirty-eight of the lower states - united only in their mind-numbingly dreary uniformity - 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. 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.

Motel Blues

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.

Seeing further: the story of science and the royal society

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.

Icons of England

Motel Blues: Voyage dans l'Amérique profonde

From the author of "Notes from a Small Island" and "The Lost Continent" comes this humorous report on his walk along the Appalachian Trail. The Trail is the longest continuous footpath in the world, and it snakes through some of the wildest and most spectacular landscapes in America.

A Walk in the Woods

Every time Bill Bryson walks out the door, memorable travel literature threatens to break out.  His previous excursion along the Appalachian Trail resulted in the sublime national bestseller A Walk in the Woods.  In A Sunburned Country is his report on what he found in an entirely different place:  Australia, the country that doubles as a continent, and a place with the friendliest inhabitants, the hottest, driest weather, and the most peculiar and lethal wildlife to be found on the planet.  The result is a deliciously funny, factfilled, and adventurous performance by a writer who combines humor, wonder, and unflagging curiousity.Despite the fact that Australia harbors more things that can kill you in extremely nasty ways than anywhere else, including sharks, crocodiles, snakes, even riptides and deserts, Bill Bryson adores the place, and he takes his readers on a rollicking ride far beyond that beaten tourist path.  Wherever he goes he finds Australians who are cheerful, extroverted, and unfailingly obliging, and these beaming products of land with clean, safe cities, cold beer, and constant sunshine fill the pages of this wonderful book.  Australia is an immense and fortunate land, and it has found in Bill Bryson its perfect guide.From the Trade Paperback edition.

Down under

Bill Bryson shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet and heads for Europe. He retraces his travels as a student twenty years earlier with caustic hilarity and his own unique brand of humour. Born in Des Moines, Iowa, Bill Bryson lived in North Yorkshire for many years. First published in 1991 by Secker & Warburg.

NEITHER HERE NOR THERE

A Short History of Nearly Everything - 10th Anniversary Edition

Etabli depuis longtemps en Grande-Bretagne, l'Américain Bill Bryson décide en 1994 de rentrer au pays : ayant été jadis surveillant dans un hôpital psychiatrique près de Londres, il veut tenter de ramener à la raison les trois millions et demi de citoyens des Etats-Unis affirmant avoir été kidnappés par des extraterrestres. Il veut aussi satisfaire son épouse, britannique, qui rêve de magasins ouverts sept jours sur sept jusqu'à 22 heures ; mais il ne quittera pas l'Angleterre avec femme et enfants sans en avoir fait seul le tour complet. Equipé d'un sac à dos et d'un humour inoxydable, il s'en va donc explorer cette île qui reste pour lui un nouveau monde, bien qu'elle soit déjà une seconde patrie. Il nous louera la propension des autochtones au bonheur et nous démontrera qu'ils auraient fait de bien meilleurs Soviétiques que les Soviétiques. Il voyagera dans des trains ressemblant à des jouets et partira à l'assaut du château médiéval de Corf, "la ruine préférée des Anglais après la princesse Margaret". Depuis lors, Bill Bryson est retourné vivre chez les Britanniques, et ils ont même élu ce livre comme l'un des plus représentatifs de leur culture. Mais il est aussi l'auteur, entre autres, de désopilants récits sur les Américains.

Des cornflakes dans le porridge - Un Américain chez les Anglais - Occasion

L'auteur américain de tant de chroniques drôlissimes sur ses compatriotes d'aujourd'hui s'intéresse à ceux du passé dans ce livre pour lequel il a été élu outre-Manche meilleur auteur de non-fiction : avec pour point de départ la traversée de l'Atlantique par Lindbergh, le 21 mai 1927, et au travers d'innombrables destins personnels, son récit est tout à la fois un portrait loufoque sur cinq mois des États-Unis d'avant la Grande Dépression, une collection d'événements et d'inventions ayant bouleversé le monde (cinéma parlant, télévision, etc.), ainsi qu'une évocation de problématiques toujours très actuelles (climat et bulles spéculatives, présidents étranges et tueurs fous...).

L'été où tout arriva

Bill Bryson describes himself as a reluctant traveller, but even when he stays safely in his own study at home, he can't contain his curiosity about the world around him. This book is his quest to understand everything that has happened from the Big Bang to the rise of civilization.

A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING

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.

THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING

William « Bill » McGuire Bryson, né le 8 décembre 1951, est un auteur ayant la double nationalité américaine et britannique qui a écrit des récits de voyages humoristiques, ainsi que des livres traitant de la langue anglaise et de sujets scientifiques. Il a vécu la majorité de sa vie d'adulte au Royaume-Uni.

https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Bryson

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