History Creator / BillBryson

* PerspectiveFlip: [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/01/bill-brysons-stephen-katz/71494350/ In an interview for USA Today]], Stephen Katz (Real name: [[spoiler:Matt Angerer]]) gave his side of several experiences Bryson wrote about, including the trip to Europe in the 70s and the events of ''A Walk in the Woods''. Apparently [[spoiler:Angerer]] ''just'' got used to walking the Appalachian Trail when Bryson called it off, and he went home while Bryson walked on successive trails in middle Appalachia, only to call him to come walking on the final stretch together again; he also was not as womanising as the book claimed he was. They went to Cuba together after the book sold well.

* PerspectiveFlip: [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/01/bill-brysons-stephen-katz/71494350/ In an interview for USA Today]], Stephen Katz (Real name:[[spoiler: Matt Angerer]]) gave his side of several experiences Bryson wrote about, including the trip to Europe in the 70s and the events of ''A Walk in the Woods''. Apparently [[spoiler:Angerer]] ''just'' got used to walking the Appalachian Trail when Bryson called it off, and he went home while Bryson walked on successive trails in middle Appalachia, only to call him to come walking on the final stretch together again; he also was not as womanising as the book claimed he was. They went to Cuba together after the book sold well.

William [=McGuire=] "Bill" Bryson, borns in Des Moines, Iowa, journalist-turned-author. He moved to the UK as a young man and has since alternated continents of residence, providing him with a unique cross-cultural perspective that has in turn been translated into hilariously acerbic travelogues. More recently he has returned to his early focus on general socio-historical trivia.

William McGuire "Bill" Bryson, borns in Des Moines, Iowa, journalist-turned-author. He moved to the UK as a young man and has since alternated continents of residence, providing him with a unique cross-cultural perspective that has in turn been translated into hilariously acerbic travelogues. More recently he has returned to his early focus on general socio-historical trivia.

Des Moines, Iowa, USA-born journalist-turned-author. Moved to the UK as a young man and has since alternated continents of residence, providing him with a unique cross-cultural perspective that has in turn been translated into hilariously acerbic travelogues. More recently he has returned to his early focus on general socio-historical trivia.

* LongList: Reporting on a waitress' offer of pie in ''Lost Continent'': "We got blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, boysenberry, huckleberry, whortleberry, cherry berry, hair berry, Chuck Berry, beri-beri and lemon."

** He visits many parts of the industrial north in ''Notes From a Small Island'' and provides a poignant reflection on the proud heritage and natural beauty of the landscape contrasted with the industrial decline and high unemployment. At one moment he looks out at a valley of former mill towns and wonders what jobs the residents are actually ''doing'' now.

* PerspectiveFlip: [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/01/bill-brysons-stephen-katz/71494350/ In an interview for USA Today]], Stephen Katz (Real name:[[spoiler: Matt Angerer]]) gave his side of several experiences Bryson wrote about, including the trip to Europe in the 70s and the events of ''A Walk in the Woods''. Apparently [[spoiler: Angerer]] ''just'' got used to walking the Appalachian trail when Bryson called it off, and he went home while Bryson walked on successive trails in middle Appalachia, only to call him to come walking on the final stretch together again; he also was not as womanising as the book claimed he was. They went to Cuba together after the book sold well.

* PerspectiveFlip: [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/01/bill-brysons-stephen-katz/71494350/ In an interview for USA Today]], Stephen Katz (Real name:[[spoiler: Matt Angerer]]) gave his side of several experiences Bryson wrote about, including the trip to Europe in the 70s and the events of ''A Walk in the Woods''. Apparently [[spoler: Angerer]] ''just'' got used to walking the Appalachian trail when Bryson called it off, and he went home while Bryson walked on successive trails in middle Appalachia, only to call him to come walking on the final stretch together again; he also was not as womanising as the book claimed he was. They went to Cuba together after the book sold well.

* PerspectiveFlip: [[https://www.usatoday.com/story/life/movies/2015/09/01/bill-brysons-stephen-katz/71494350/ In an interview for USA Today]], Stephen Katz (Real name:[[spoiler: Matt Angerer)]]]] gave his side of several experiences Bryson wrote about, including the trip to Europe in the 70s and the events of ''A Walk in the Woods''.

* EverythingSoundsSexierInFrench

* BerserkButton: Ugly architecture generally and the removal of the UK's red phone boxes particularly.
** Don't forget small movie theaters.

* CharacterizationMarchesOn: It is possible to track a distinct evolution in Bryson's attitudes and prejudices reading his books chronologically. He seems to become mellower and less judgmental in later books, perhaps as he becomes increasingly learned. In earlier books his treatment of women verges on outright misogyny, but in his most recent books he seems to have come over to the side of feminism (he uses 'she' as a default pronoun and is very active in documenting the achievements of women is his books about history and science, and is keen to denounce their often unacknowledged importance to their fields).The writer of books like 'A Short History Of Nearly Everything' and 'At Home' feels like a much more informed and open-minded man that the writer of 'The Lost Continent'.
** WordOfGod in [[http://augustjordandavis.blogspot.co.uk/2009/01/mark-lawson-talks-to-bill-bryson.html a BBC interview]] addresses this with Bryson admitting that much of his more [[DeadpanSnarker snarky]] crude humour in early books came from general inexperience at having to write full length books and maintain the reader's attention.

* UsefulNotes/CricketRules: He has mentioned at one point that, to an American, any UsefulNotes/{{cricket}} fan's description of a match or its rules might as well be completely made-up, for how ludicrous it sounds.
** Ironically, he himself understands cricket perfectly well.
** From the point of view of a non-American, the parts of ''One Summer: America 1927'' dealing with baseball read much like this. While there are a few explanatory footnotes here and there, Bryson doesn't appear to get how much about the game (i.e. pretty much everything) you'd have to explain to the average European.

* DisproportionateRetribution: Some of the people who were shipped off to Australia.
** Better than being hanged for ''impersonating an Egyptian.''
** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] at the time. Before [[UsefulNotes/VictorianBritain the Victorian Era]], the likelihood of catching criminals in a big city like London was so incredibly low that the punishments for the few caught had to act as a deterrent.
** And, in another place, [[JustifiedTrope justified]] or [[SubvertedTrope subverted]]: he discusses the cliche of people being dealt serious punishment (deportation, imprisonment etc) for the theft of a handkerchief. As he points out, this is nearly always given as an example of just how disproportionate punishment could be in the 17th and 18th centuries. But in fact, as Bryson goes on, silk would have been incredibly valuable, even rich people able to afford only a small handkerchief. It would probably have been the most valuable thing some middle-class people owned outside of their house.

* EverythingTryingToKillYou: His assessment of the local wildlife Down Under. Considering Australia even has its own header in the trope entry, he's probably right.

* GenerationXerox: ''I'm A Stranger Here Myself'': When his son reads ''The Lost Continent'' and is amazed at how much Bill Bryson Sr. and Jr. seem to be alike. "I have to admit it, I have become my father. I even read license plates."

* GretzkyHasTheBall: Done with deliberate comic exaggeration when trying to describe listening to cricket on Australian radio: "Tandoori took Rogan Josh for a stiffy at Vindaloo in '61"

* OopNorth: On first moving to the UK and marrying, he spent many years living in a remote village in Yorkshire.

* PornStash: Discovering his father's "modest girlie stash".

* AdHominem: In ''One Summer: America 1927'', Bryson slips into the "Poisoning the Well" variant during the discussion of the guilt or innocence of Sacco and Vanzetti, listing several facts about the two of them (they were card-carrying anarchists who knew other people guilty of bombings and such) that, while not casting the two in any particularly good light, also appear to have no bearing on them being guilty of the crime they were executed for. To be fair, he's obviously trying to be impartial, but it still comes across as this trope when nothing he says actually connects the two to the crime.

** [[JustifiedTrope Justified]] at the time. Before [[VictorianBritain the Victorian Era]], the likelihood of catching criminals in a big city like London was so incredibly low that the punishments for the few caught had to act as a deterrent.

** Subvertted by his father's writing quoted in ''Thunderbolt Kid''.

* TakeThat: Frequent, and not at all subtle. See the page quote above.

* TechnologyMarchesOn: The Gizmo-crazy hiker in ''Walk In The Woods'' is kitted out with technology that was advanced in 1997 (GPS, self-pitching tent) but is fairly standard fare now.

* AuthorExistenceFailure: His old friend and frequent correspondent in Australia died just before he was due to visit her while writing ''Down Under'' so he offers a humorous tale she once told him as a tribute.

* BeamMeUpScotty: In ''Notes From a Big Country'' (which is a collection of UK newspaper columns about life in the States) he falls heavily for a popular misquote of Mariah Carey.

* CreatorBreakdown: Bryson believes that if ever Shakespeare's own voice appears in his work it is in ''King John'', written after Shakespeare's son Hamnet died: "Grief fills the room up of my absent child, Lies in his bed, walks up and down with me, Puts on his pretty looks, repeats his words, Remembers me of all his gracious parts, Stuffs out his vacant garments with his form."

* ScienceMarchesOn: The march of science itself is the subject of ''A Short History Of Nearly Everything''.
** In that book he hopes that Pluto will continue to be a planet. Yeah, not anymore. Especially interesting is the book was written as New Horizons was ''leaving'' for Pluto.

* UnintentionalPeriodPiece: The aforementioned ''Lost Continent;'' and ''A Walk in the Woods''. ''Notes from a Big Country'' mostly because it deals with a mid-[[TheNineties 90's]] world just before the internet and cellphones became ubiquitous- Bryson mentions the difficulty of finding change for a payphone at the airport, the amount of mail order catalogues he's sent, sending faxes to the UK, and renting movies on videotape. At the same time, he writes during the very peak of sedentary, suburban, automobile-centric living in America.

* CricketRules: He has mentioned at one point that, to an American, any cricket fan's description of a match or its rules might as well be completely made-up, for how ludicrous it sounds.

* [[UsefulNotes/{{Cleveland}} Cleveland Rocks]]

* DeadpanSnarker

* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: In ''The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way'' Bryson brings up how in the 1970's Robert Burchfield claimed that eventually American and British English would eventually become different languages. In 1990, when ''Mother Tongue'' was written, neither no one could have predicted the rise of broadband Internet allowing us to talk to each other, play games together, read each others writing, and watch each others movies - it makes for a very interesting look back.

* SeparatedByACommonLanguage: In ''The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way'' brings up how Robert Burchfield claimed that eventually American and British English would eventually seperate. In 1990, neither Bryson nor Burchfield could have predicted the rise of the Internet allowing us to talk to each other, play games together, read each others writing, and watch each other's movies makes it a very interesting look back.