Bill Bryson is an excellent author who artfully blends lots of information with a humorous, light-to-read style. He is a prolific author of travel books - telling about his "adventures" in various places around the world. "In a sunburned country" (previously called "Down under", much more appropriately) deals with his visits to the "southern land" - Australia.
I picked this book up in preparation for our big trip to Australia and New Zealand later this year, and I'm very glad I did - it was worth every penny and every minute spent reading. In this cheerful, at times hillarious narration, Bryson tells about his travels all around Australia, divided into several separate trips which all together covered most of the country. The book contains tons of interesting information about many "hot spots" in Australia and can serve as a rough guide around the country. Bryson doesn't impose his views on the reader. Rather, he tells of what he did, and his reasons for visiting some places and skipping others. Naturally, his interests are of a 50-year old reporter and author, and are different from my interests, but still this book is full with useful knowledge about what to visit. He does manage to be extremely funny, however, which left me laughing out loud quite a few times while reading the book.
I must say that while prior reading this book I was convinced that much more time must be given to NZ than Oz, now my views has shifted somewhat. I blame it on Bryson's excellent story-telling skills :-) Pity there's no book of his about New Zealand, to balance the impression.
Eli Bendersky's website