William McGuire Bryson is an American–British journalist and author. Bryson has written a number of nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has been a resident of Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the U.S. between 1995 and 2003, and holds dual American and British citizenship.

Bryson was born and raised in Des Moines, Iowa, the son of Bill Bryson Sr. and Agnes Mary (née McGuire). His mother was of Irish descent. He had an older brother, Michael (1942–2012), and a sister, Mary Jane Elizabeth. In 2006, Bryson published The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid, a humorous account of his childhood years in Des Moines. In 2006 Frank Cownie, the mayor of Des Moines, awarded Bryson the key to the city and announced that 21 October 2006 would be “Bill Bryson, The Thunderbolt Kid, Day.”

Bryson attended Drake University for two years before dropping out in 1972, deciding instead to backpack around Europe for four months. He returned to Europe the following year with a high school friend, Matt Angerer (the pseudonymous Stephen Katz). Bryson wrote about some of his experiences from the trip in his book Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe.

Bryson first visited Great Britain in 1973 during his tour of Europe and decided to stay after securing a job working in a psychiatric hospital, the now-defunct Holloway Sanatorium in Virginia Water, Surrey. He met a nurse there, Cynthia Billen, whom he married in 1975. They moved to Bryson’s hometown of Des Moines, Iowa, in 1975 so Bryson could complete his degree at Drake University. In 1977 they settled in Britain. He worked as a journalist there.

Although able to apply for British citizenship, Bryson said in 2010 that he had declined a citizenship test, declaring himself “too cowardly” to take it. However, in 2014, he said that he was preparing to take it and in the prologue to his 2015 book The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes From a Small Island he describes doing so. His citizenship ceremony took place in Winchester and he now holds dual citizenship.

I first learned the joys of reading Bill Bryson from his book called A Walk in the Woods. It is a hilarious account of his walk on the Appalachian Trail with his friend Stephen Katz. The scrapes they get into made me laugh out loud. It is worth reading if you are interested in the Trail, hiking or watching two middle-aged men take on a trail they aren’t quite physically fit for!

The other book of his that I really enjoyed was called The Mother Tongue. It is a book all about the English language. It starts at the beginning, telling us how English came to be. It does a lot of explaining how we can talk. That may sound boring, but it is fascinating how our body works. It’s also fascinating how English came to be as a language (it started as a peasant dialect). It was looked down on to begin with and now it is one of the most spoken languages in the world. Don’t look down on small starts!

To read Bill Bryson, though, you need to borrow a talent from my Grandma Elizabeth. She was a voracious reader. When she was asked one time about bad language in a book, she just shrugged and said, “I skip over the bad words.” That’s what I do with Bryson, also. Skip the bad words, because his stories are so good. I also know that he uses millions of years as a starting point in some of his books, so they aren’t exactly Biblical, but you can skip that part, too

Bryson has lots of other books, too. I have not read all of them, so I can’t vouch for them. I’m sure at least some of the others are good, too!

Have you read Bryson? If so, which books did you like the best? Also, I’m curious if you have my grandma’s talent? Can you skip bad words or does that make or book a no read for you?