**** Recommend it Highly recommend if you are a Bill Bryson fan. Highly recommend if you are considering a trip to Australia. Recommend if you are interested in Australia. I have read a number of Bryson books over the years. My wife and I started many years ago by jointly reading "A Walk in the Woods." It was the book we were consuming before going to sleep for the night. That communal experience of smiling and laughing out loud to the observations of Mr. Bryson as he stumbled down the Appalachian Trail made us fans for life. This book, "In a Sunburned Country,” , about his experiences as he stumbled through Australia, just adds to my fondness of him. He seems to have found a real niche for himself. He is genuinely interested in the world around him; things big and small. He picks something that he doesn’t know anything about, travels to the key places in the world where that the thing exists, and writes about his experiences doing it. His writing is a pleas
*** Liked it Recommend if you like historical battles. Recommend if you have no clue about the War of 1812. Recommend if you don't know much about President Andrew Jackson. I picked up this book because I really couldn’t remember a damn thing about the War of 1812. I knew that we got the Star Spangled Banner national anthem from this war but didn’t remember why. I knew that I thought President Andrew Jackson was a racist son-of-bitch with his treatment of the American Indians and the Trail of Tears. I also knew that Col Andrew Jackson had a victory in New Orleans from Johnny Horton’s song, "The Battle Of New Orleans.” Lastly, I somehow knew that Davy Crocket served with Jackson in New Orleans before he died at the Alamo. But I didn’t know the details. So, I thought I would try to remedy all of that. Here is the setup. Just 20 years after George Washington defeated the British in the U.S. revolutionary war, the British had impressed some 10,000 American sailors to su