Bill Bryson, bestselling nonfiction author, to read from his new book
October 5, 2013
"One Summer: America, 1927" tells the story of a pivotal time in
America's national "coming of age"
Bill Bryson, one of the best-loved
nonfiction writers in the English-speaking world, will read from his new book,
One
Summer: America, 1927 (2013), the story of a pivotal year in America's
national "coming of age," on Saturday, October 5, 2013 at 7:30 p.m.
in the Clark Auditorium, NYS Museum, Cultural Education Center, in downtown
Albany. The event is free and open to the public, and is sponsored by the New
York State Writers Institute, the New York State Library, and Friends of the
New York State Library.
Bill Bryson is one of the best-loved nonfiction writers in the
English-speaking world. Laugh-out-loud funny and astonishingly scholarly,
Bryson's many books on travel, history, science, culture, and the English
language have earned him a large following of readers on both sides of the
Atlantic. Born and raised in Iowa, Bryson has spent much of his adult life in
England, where he was awarded the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for his
contributions to British arts and letters. He is also a Fellow of the Royal
Society and served as Chancellor of Durham University, England's third oldest
university, from 2005 to 2011.
Bryson's new book,
One Summer: America, 1927 (2013), tells the
story of a pivotal time in America's national "coming of age," when
media spectacles became the country's obsession. The book features a large cast
of colorful characters including celebrity "flyboy" Charles
Lindbergh, homerun king Babe Ruth, husband-killer Ruth Snyder, flagpole sitter
Alvin "Shipwreck" Kelly, gangster Al Capone, jazz singer Al Jolson,
do-nothing president Calvin Coolidge, and Mount Rushmore sculptor Gutzon
Borglum. In a starred review,
Booklist called it,
"Glorious," and said, "Bryson offers delicious detail and
breathtaking suspense about events whose outcomes are already known."
Kirkus
called it, "A distinctively drawn time capsule from a definitive
epoch."
Bryson's most recent book was the international bestseller,
At Home: A
Short History of Private Life (2010), an epic chronicle of innovations in
domestic architecture, from bathrooms to kitchens. The
New York Times Book
Review called it "Delightful...," and said, "Bryson's
enthusiasm brightens any dull corner... He is fascinated by everything, and his
curiosity is infectious."
People magazine said, "If this
book doesn't supply you with five years' worth of dinner conversation, you're
not paying attention." The book will be reissued shortly in a new
illustrated edition featuring more than 300 drawings and photographs.
Bryson's bestselling travel books include
Bill Bryson's African Diary (2002),
about visits to humanitarian projects sponsored by CARE International (which
received all proceeds);
In a Sunburned Country (2000), about
Australia;
A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian
Trail (1998);
Notes from a Small Island (1995), about Great
Britain; and
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1989).
Notes from a Small Island was voted the book that best represented
Great Britain in a 2003 poll of BBC radio listeners. The
New York Times
Book Review said of
A Walk in the Woods, "Bryson is...great
company right from the start-a lumbering, droll, neatnik intellectual who comes
off as equal parts Garrison Keillor, Michael Kinsley, and...Dave Barry.... a
satirist of the first rank, who writes (and walks) with Chaucerian brio."
A Short History of Nearly Everything (2004), Bryson's book on the
history of science, earned the Royal Society's Aventis Prize, as well as the
Descartes Prize, the European Union's highest literary award. His books on
English language and literature include
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (2007),
Bryson's Dictionary of Troublesome Words (2002),
Made in America:
An Informal History of the English Language in the United States (1994),
and
The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way (1990).
For additional information, contact the Writers Institute at 518-442-5620 or
online at
http://www.albany.edu/writers-inst.
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Q: A lot of your stories in this volume present characters, usually men, who are so self-absorbed that they necessarily veer toward disaster. Is your view of human nature more dark than light? 
