Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa and attended Drake University for two years before he dropped out in 1972.

He moved to Britain in 1973, where he met his wife and worked as a journalist for a couple of years.

While living in England, he moved for a brief time to the United States to finish his college degree.

In 1995, he moved back to the United States and lived in New Hampshire.

He has written several bestselling novels ranging from travel books, to books about the history of science and even language books.

He won the Royal Society’s Aventis Prize, the Descartes Prize and the European Union’s highest literary award for his novel, A Short History of Nearly Everything.

Also, his novel The Lost Continent, A Walk in the Woods and Notes from a Small Island was voted the book that best represents Britain.

Aside from his literature accomplishments, he was appointed chancellor of Durham University in 2005, received the President’s Award from the Royal Society of Chemistry in 2005, received the key to the city in Des Moines, Iowa and was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society in 2013, becoming the first non-Briton to be given the honor.