Not so James Urquhart in the Financial Times: "Down Under exhibits a smoother and more mature humour than previous works. There is no shortage of idiots - which is why Down Under will sell thousands more copies than Anglo-Australian Attitudes. Bryson goes to Australia for a couple of months, produces a hack work that sells massively and even wins over a perceptive reviewer who has immediately seen through its slackness and superficiality.

He reserves his funniest writing for those occasions when he encounters total frustration and annoyance. The problem is that, after a few pages, one finds oneself looking forward to the moments when Bryson takes us back to the library.

My nonfiction books 'Paranormal Warwickshire', 'Illustrated Tales of Warwickshire' and 'A-Z of Warwick' are published by Amberley Publishing. His bestselling books include The Road to Little Dribbling, Notes from a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, One Summer and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid. From my experience, people rarely recognise themselves in books, and of course, the author can always change the names. He has written books on language, on Shakespeare, on history, and on his own childhood in the hilarious memoir The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid .

As a Brit, I found Down Under infinitely less threatening and much more enjoyable than Notes on a Small Island (see separate review); the latter which is nonetheless great itself.He arrives at his destination, finds a hotel, meanders around the neighbourhood, has a couple of drinks, eavesdrops on a conversation or two, then goes to bed. Bill Bryson’s assessment of her, the hotel, and the people of Darwin would not look good on Trip Adviser. Bill Bryson ’s bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent and Notes from a Small Island , which in a national poll was voted the book that best represents Britain. Ignoring such dangers - and yet curiously obsessed by them - Bill Bryson journeyed to Australia and promptly fell in love with the country.

I felt, when reading this book that here we have an author who's churning out one book after another, thinking he's found a winning formula when really it all gets a bit same-o. This is, after all, a man who sits through the capital's promotional tourist video, Canberra - It's Got It All! Bryson's books seem so simple - solipsistic narrator, quick tour of country, lots of anecdotes, dash of humour, a few all-embracing conclusions - that some reviewers dismiss the skill with which they are put together.The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. The thing that Bryson most loves about Australia - its "effortlessly dry, direct way of viewing the world" - is, in fact, his own. This part of the journey covers the Great Barrier Reef, the cities of Cairns, Darwin, and Alice Springs, and the mighty monolithic rock Uluru.