File:Neil_MacGregor,_Bill_Bryson,_Claire_Walker,_Huw_Edwards_(28449155987)_(Bryson_cropped).jpg · Wikimedia Commons · See Wikimedia Commons
Bill Bryson
Sign in to saveAlso known as William Bryson, William "Bill" McGuire Bryson, William McGuire Bryson
American-British author (born 1951)
OverviewAI-generated
Bill Bryson, born William McGuire Bryson on December 8, 1951, in Des Moines, is an American journalist, travel writer, autobiographer, and science communicator. He began his professional work in 1985 and was educated at Drake University. Bryson writes in English and has produced works in the genres of popular science literature and travel literature. His notable works include *A Short History of Nearly Everything* and *A Walk in the Woods*.
He is a member of the Royal Society and has received the award of Officer of the Order of the British Empire, as well as an honorary doctorate. Bryson’s fields of work encompass non-fiction literature, popular science literature, travel books, and English studies.
Synthesized by Vinony from 41 facts across 9 sources: Wikidata, Crossref, Open Library, MusicBrainz, Last.fm, Firecrawl, Wikiquote, Vinony collections, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.
Person · Open Library
- Born
- 8 December 1951
- Works
- 74
via Open Library + Wikidata
Listeners · Last.fm
- Listeners
- 9,048
- Total plays
- 354,030
Tags
William 'Bill' McGuire Bryson (born December 8, 1951) is a best-selling American author of humorous books on travel, as well as books on the English language and on scientific subjects. <a href="https://www.last.fm/music/Bill+Bryson">Read more on Last.fm</a>
Recent publications · Crossref
5 total works indexed
- The ERA5 global reanalysis
· 2020 · cited 24,136x
- The diagnosis of dementia due to Alzheimer's disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease
· 2011 · cited 13,444x
- The diagnosis of mild cognitive impairment due to Alzheimer's disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease
· 2011 · cited 9,149x
- Toward defining the preclinical stages of Alzheimer's disease: Recommendations from the National Institute on Aging‐Alzheimer's Association workgroups on diagnostic guidelines for Alzheimer's disease
· 2011 · cited 6,105x
- Worldwide trends in body-mass index, underweight, overweight, and obesity from 1975 to 2016: a pooled analysis of 2416 population-based measurement studies in 128·9 million children, adolescents, and adults
· 2017 · cited 5,577x
via Crossref · CC0
Quotes
- “I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”
- “When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a girl called Bobbi and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job in the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever.”
- “My father liked Iowa. He lived his whole life in the state, and is even now working his way through eternity there, in Glendale Cemetery in Des Moines.”
- “I had to calm down because a state trooper pulled up alongside me at a traffic light and began looking at me with that sort of casual disdain you often get when you give a dangerously stupid person a gun and a squad car.”
- “I assume he was descended from apes like all the rest of us, but clearly in his case it had been a fairly gentle slope.”
- “I watched a rerun on television of a 1960s comedy programme called "Mr Ed", which was about a talking horse. Judging by the quality of the jokes, I would guess that Mr Ed wrote his own material.”
via Wikiquote · CC BY-SA
Key facts
- Vice chancellor
- Kenneth Calman Chris Higgins
- Preceded by
- Peter Ustinov
- Succeeded by
- Thomas Allen
- Born
- William McGuire Bryson , ( 1951-12-08 ) 8 December 1951 (age 74) , Des Moines, Iowa , U.S.
- Citizenship
- United States, United Kingdom
- Spouse
- Cynthia Billen ( married</span>"}]]}'>m. 1975 )
- Alma mater
- Drake University ( BA )
via Wikipedia infobox
Official website
Bill Bryson
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He is the author of eighteen books and holds the record of having the most bestsellers of any author on the Sunday Times bestseller list in the last fifty years. A Short History of Nearly Everything, first published in 2003, spent 106 weeks in the chart, won both the Aventis Prize and the Descartes Prize and is the biggest-selling popular science book of the twenty-first century. Bill Bryson is a former Chancellor of Durham University and is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He lives in England.
penguin.co.uk →Link to the official site · 10,285 chars · not written by Vinony
Wikidata facts
- Instance of
- human
- Given name
- William
- Gender
- male
- Citizenship
- United States
- Place of birth
- Des Moines
- Occupation
- writer
- Languages spoken
- English language
- Native language
- English language
- Award
- honorary doctorate
- Notable work
- A Walk in the Woods
- Field of work
- journalism
- Genre
- travel literature
- Official website
- www.penguin.co.uk/authors/101/1017933/bill-bryson.html
- Image
- Bill Bryson (28449155987) (Bryson cropped) (cropped).jpg
Show 9 more facts
- Commons category
- Bill Bryson
- date of birth
- 1951-12-08
- birth name
- William McGuire Bryson
- member of
- Royal Society
- Commons gallery
- Bill Bryson
- name in native language
- Bill Bryson
- start of work period
- 1985-00-00
- social media followers
- 12837
- pseudonym
- Bill Bryson
via Wikidata · CC0
~9 min read
Encyclopedic overview
William McGuire Bryson (/ˈbraɪsən/ BRYE-sən; born 8 December 1951) is an American-British journalist and author. Bryson has written nonfiction books on topics including travel, the English language, and science. Born in the United States, he has resided in Britain for most of his adult life, returning to the U.S. between 1995 and 2003, and holds dual American and British citizenship. He was the chancellor of Durham University from 2005 to 2011.
In 1995, while in the United Kingdom, Bryson wrote Notes from a Small Island, an exploration of Britain. In 2003, he authored A Short History of Nearly Everything. In October 2020, he announced that he had retired from writing books. He has sold over 16 million books worldwide. He recorded an audiobook for Audible, The Secret History of Christmas, in 2022.
Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Bill Bryson” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.