25 Jan 2007 - Bill Bryson to recieve L&H James Joyce award
Venue: Theatre Q, Newman Building
Time: 7.00pm
Bill Bryson, hilarious American author and chancellor of Durham University, is to receive a James Joyce award from the Literary and Historical Society on Thursday the 25th of January at 7.00pm in Theatre Q, the Newman Building.
Mr. Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. A back packing expedition in 1973 brought him to England where he met his wife and decided to settle. He wrote for the English newspapers 'The Times' and 'The Independent' for many years, writing travel articles to supplement his income.
The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first travel book, chronicles a trip in his mother's Chevy around small town America. Since then, he has written several more, including notable bestsellers, A Walk in the Woods, Notes from a Big Country, most recently The life's and times of the thunderbolt kid and A Short History of Nearly Everything, for which he won the Aventis Prize in 2004
In 2003, in conjunction with World Book Day, voters in Great Britain chose Bryson's book Notes from a Small Island as that which best sums up British identity and the state of the nation. In the same year, he was appointed a Commissioner for English Heritage. On December 13, 2006 he was made an honorary OBE (an honorary Order of the British Empire) for his contribution to literature
The debating union is delighted to award such a distinguished member of the literary community and invite all to attend. Questions will be welcomed from the floor.