The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection
Divided by a Common Language, Journeys in English and More
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The Bill Bryson BBC Radio Collection
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Narrated by:
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Bill Bryson
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Written by:
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Bill Bryson
About this listen
An anthology of BBC Radio documentaries featuring the bestselling author
Bill Bryson is the world's funniest travel writer, and a master of comic observation. His hugely popular books, spanning topics from linguistics to Shakespeare to the human body, have sold over 16 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, and his 2003 science book A Short History of Nearly Everything won the prestigious Aventis and Descartes prizes.
This sparkling collection features seven BBC Radio programmes that collectively illuminate his personal passions. In The Art of Travel, he talks to Annette Kobak about his memorable journeys around the USA; while in the 6-part series Divided by a Common Language, he scours American history in an attempt to find out why Americans talk and behave differently from British people. Journeys in English, based on his acclaimed book Mother Tongue, sees him romping through the history of Britain in six episodes, to reveal how English became the complex yet world-beating language it is today.
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park finds Bill heading out across the royal park in the company of Clare Balding, as he discusses his love for walking and exploring. As a castaway on Desert Island Discs, he shares the soundtrack of his life with Sue Lawley; and in With Great Pleasure, he selects some of his favourite writing, including Evelyn Waugh's Scoop, a Hardy Boys classic and Three Men in a Boat. Finally, in Bookclub, he chats to James Naughtie and an audience of readers about A Short History of Nearly Everything.
Contents
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson
Divided by a Common Language
Journeys in English
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson
Bookclub: Bill Bryson
Production credits
The Art of Travel: Bill Bryson
Presented by Annette Kobak
Produced by Kate McAII
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 27 January 1991
Divided by a Common Language
Presented by Bill Bryson
Produced by Brian King
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 29 July-2 September 1995
Journeys in English
Written and presented by Bill Bryson
Produced by Brian King
First broadcast as Mother Tongue on BBC Radio 4, 13 December 1997-17 January 1998
Ramblings: Windsor Great Park with Bill Bryson
Presented by Clare Balding
Produced by Lucy Lunt
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 24 September 2015
Desert Island Discs: Bill Bryson
Presented by Sue Lawley
Produced by Angie Nehring
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 31 January 1999
With Great Pleasure: Bill Bryson
Readers: Kerry Shale and Bill Wallis
Produced by Mary Ward-Lowery
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 30 September 1999
Bookclub: Bill Bryson
Presented by James Naughtie
Produced by Dymphna Flynn
First broadcast BBC Radio 4, 6 February 2005
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3 out of 5 stars
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One Summer
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Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 25
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 20
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4 out of 5 stars
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Pretty good - Short and Sweet
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The Road to Little Dribbling
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- Narrated by: Nathan Osgood
- Length: 14 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 33
Twenty years ago, Bill Bryson went on a trip around Britain to discover and celebrate that green and pleasant land. The result was Notes from a Small Island, a true classic and one of the bestselling travel books ever written. Now he has traveled about Britain again, by bus and train and rental car and on foot, to see what has changed—and what hasn’t.
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1 out of 5 stars
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Verbiage of the willfully uneducated
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Shakespeare
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- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 5 hrs and 29 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 40
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Performance5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 32
William Shakespeare, the most celebrated poet in the English language, left behind nearly a million words of text, but his biography has long been a thicket of wild supposition arranged around scant facts. With a steady hand and his trademark wit, Bill Bryson sorts through this colorful muddle to reveal the man himself.
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5 out of 5 stars
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Wonderful
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Written by: Bill Bryson
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The Lost Continent
- Travels In Small Town America
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 10 hrs and 12 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4 out of 5 stars 36
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
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Story4 out of 5 stars 34
Hardly anyone ever leaves Des Moines, Iowa. But Bill Bryson did, and after 10 years in England he decided to go home, to a foreign country. In an ageing Chevrolet Chevette, he drove nearly 14,000 miles through 38 states to compile this hilarious and perceptive state-of-the-nation report on small-town America.
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3 out of 5 stars
-
Disappointing!
- By Pierre Gauthier on 2021-05-17
Written by: Bill Bryson
-
One Summer
- America, 1927
- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: Bill Bryson
- Length: 17 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall5 out of 5 stars 43
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 33
-
Story5 out of 5 stars 33
One of the most admired nonfiction writers of our time retells the story of one truly fabulous year in the life of his native country - a fascinating and gripping narrative featuring such outsized American heroes as Charles Lindbergh, Babe Ruth, and yes Herbert Hoover, and a gallery of criminals (Al Capone), eccentrics (Shipwreck Kelly), and close-mouthed politicians (Calvin Coolidge). It was the year Americans attempted and accomplished outsized things and came of age in a big, brawling manner. What a country. What a summer. And what a writer to bring it all so vividly alive.
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5 out of 5 stars
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listened to this book four times
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Written by: Bill Bryson
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- Written by: Bill Bryson
- Narrated by: William Roberts
- Length: 18 hrs and 10 mins
- Unabridged
-
Overall4.5 out of 5 stars 28
-
Performance4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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Story4.5 out of 5 stars 22
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5 out of 5 stars
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What the critics say
"There's no writer like him." (The Guardian)