The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town America (1999) constitutes author Bill Bryson's first of many travel books. It details Bryson's nearly fourteen-thousand mile car journey, which started in his hometown of Des Moines, Iowa and took Bryson...

As its title suggests, A Short History of Nearly Everything (2003) is a short history of nearly everything in the world. In the book, Bryson attempts to provide short and simple explanations of otherwise seemingly inaccessible topics like...