Down Under

"Australia is a country that exists on a vast scale. It is the world's sixth largest country and a its largest island. It is the only island that is also a continent that is also a country. It is the driest, flattest, hottest, most desiccated, infertile and climatically aggressive of all the inhabited continents and still it teems with life - a large proportion of it quite deadly. In fact, Australia has more things that can kill you in a very nasty way than anywhere else. This is a country where even the fluffiest of caterpillars can lay you out with a toxic nip, where seashells will not just sting you but actually sometimes go for you. If you are not stung or prolonged to death in some unexpected manner, you may be fatally chomped by sharks or crocodiles, or carried helplessly out to sea by irressistible currents, or left to stagger to an unhappy death in the baking outback. Ignoring such dangers - yet curilously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and prompty fell in love with the country. And who can blame him? The people are cheerful, extrovert, quick-witted and unfailingly obliging; their cities are safe and clean and nearly always built on water ; the food is excellent ; the beer is cold and the sun nearly always shines. Life doesn't get much better than this." - book jacket.