Never knew Bryson was such a funny writer. In all those reading during the college days, I saw his ‘A short history of everything’, misjudged him to be a philosopher or an imitator from ‘A brief history of time’. Never bothered to read him till I grabbed this for four euros in my neighbourhood second hand book shop. And I am embarrassed - to have been judgemental and being so wrong about him, happy - to have discovered Australia and gotten more familiar with its quirks, surprised - that Bryson is a funny person and glad - as I may have discovered a new genre to my reading, i.e. travel books. Unlike most travel books that I have often skimmed through in book stores - never bought any -, this book fascinated me till the last page. It’s fast paced because the writing varies and complements Bryson’s different experiences in the country. His tone and structure adapt to the circumstances highlighting different personalities of Bryson and Australia. It’s a quarter century old book that wittily mentions five-century-old facts about Australia. An average person imagines Kangaroos, Melbourne, Sportive and funny beer drinking Australians, Sydney Opera House, Great Barrier Reef and maybe the Aboriginals. Bryson’s book traverses these stereotypes and explores the history, culture, tradition and friendliness - almost everywhere - of Australians in a very engaging and funny manner. It doesn’t stay in one place and traverses the country with changes in landscape and mannerism. Geert Mak did the same for Europe in his book - In Europe - but remained focussed on the history. Mak’s book was weighed down by the burden of History as he sought depth to tell about a city’s past, and abruptly jumped between cities. Mak didn’t dare to risk and stuck to the book’s theme. Bryson engaged in the local jokes and friendship and also attempted to appreciate Cricket by making jokes about it. He did not overdo it like Phil does in his Netflix series, ‘Somebody Feed Phil.’ The show becomes more about Phil rather than the city or the food, however, Bryson’s book never becomes about him. Bryson brought in humour at appropriate times between the long journeys, scary wildlife and the unfriendly hotel staff in Alice Springs. Many critics will argue the different medium for this discrepancy but the discrepancy is quite vast on the same subject. One remains about the city, country while the other becomes more about the presenter. Simplifying Ned Kelly’s legend with humour, explaining the risk of Australian wildlife with tourists getting eaten by sharks, capturing the awe of Ayers rock are my highlights from the book. The book is also accompanied with appropriate scientific depth of Australian wildlife. Amidst the camaraderie, culture and nature Bryson casually informs the reader that the first aviator to fly across the Pacific was an Australian, whose achievement is belittled by the limelight-hogging Charles Lindbergh. Bryson attempts to bring Charles Kingsford Smith back from oblivion into Aviation history. "In 1606, a Spanish mariner named Luis Vaez de Torres sailed across the Pacific from South America and straight into the narrow channel (now called the Torres Strait) that separates Australia from New Guinea without having the faintest idea that he had just done the nautical equivalent of threading a needle." With one simple paragraph he makes the difficult passing through a narrow strait as trivial as threading a needle, and simultaneously insinuates that the Spanish may have arrived in Australia before James Cook, but missed it completely too. The writing style adapts to capture the significance and at times insignificance of these places - a hallmark of good art. Simultaneously, he doesn’t shy from using numbers when necessary to explain the growth of Sydney and its overtaking of Melbourne within seventy five years, the political and integration challenges the Aboriginals face, and how the British convicts in the 1800s started to outnumber the prisons. It’s immersive reading without requiring any extra focus in reading. I felt I was in Australia as I flipped pages through its territory, history, culture, wildlife and sometimes bad hospitality. In his travel towards Ayers Rock he is laborious with words to describe the ordeal but these sentences quickly give way to a beautiful appreciation of Ayers Rock.