Bill Bryson's book on Australia starts with the hilarious but true story of how a nation lost its Prime Minister in a surfing accident, and the tone never lets up from there. Barely a page goes by without a reference to poisonous spiders, lethal snakes, or killer jellyfish — and that is before mentioning crocodiles or sharks.
But Down Under is more than a catalogue of things that can kill you. Bryson travels from Sydney to Perth, from the Outback to the Great Barrier Reef, capturing the vastness and strangeness of a continent that most of the world knows almost nothing about. He is genuinely fascinated by Australian history, wildlife, and the cheerful fatalism of the people who live alongside all those deadly creatures. Essential pre-trip reading — you will arrive expecting to be terrified and end up charmed.