First serial to Outside magazine BOMC selection. Peppered with seemingly irrelevant (albeit amusing) yarns, this work is a delight to read, whether or not a trip to the continent is planned. He glorifies the country, alternating between awe, reverence and fear, and he expresses these sentiments with frankness and candor, via truly funny prose and a conversational pace that is at once unhurried and captivating. Pitfalls aside, Bryson revels in the beauty of this country, home to ravishing beaches and countless unique species (''80% of all that lives in Australia, plant and animal, lives nowhere else''). His unrelenting insistence that Australia is the most dangerous place on earth (''If you are not stung or pronged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irresistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback'') spins off dozens of tales involving jellyfish, spiders and the world's 10 most poisonous snakes. Arranged loosely by region, the book bounces between Canberra and Melbourne, the Outback and the Gold Coast, showing Bryson alone and with partners in tow.

The author of A Walk in the Woods draws readers in campfire-style, relating wacky anecdotes and random facts gathered on multiple trips down under, all the while lightening the statistics with infusions of whimsical humor. Still, Bryson's lively take is a welcome recess from packaged, staid guides. More or less recovered from his Appalachian walk in the woods, Bill Bryson embarked on a tour of our under-discovered neighbor to the far, far south. With the Olympics approaching, books on Australia abound.

Under a sunburned country