You did a whole book on Australia, and have travelled here a bit since – what’s the number one tip or recommendation you’d give someone coming for the first time?
Get out and walk! I mean, maybe not through the outback, but if you’re in any of the cities, walk. I do that wherever I go. And I love to just go off and explore without knowing where I’m going, without a map or any preconceived ideas. I think it’s the best way to discover a place, and it has the great virtue that if you turn a corner – say in Sydney – and there’s suddenly the Harbour Bridge, you feel as if you’ve discovered it. There’s a real feeling of exhilaration, I think, in that. But also, you discover little cafes and hidden corners and odds and ends.
You just issued the revised edition of A Short History Of Nearly Everything; what was your favourite fact you learned in revisiting that book, two decades later?
I think the one that most staggered me was that the number of moons in our solar system is roughly double now what it was when I first wrote the book – and I just thought, well, didn’t they notice these other moons? I mean, 100 new moons have been discovered. And the answer, apparently, is a lot of them are really quite small – they’re essentially just big rocks. But if a rock faithfully orbits a planet, then it qualifies as a moon. [That change] was in chapter one, and I went through the book in chronological order. So I just thought, Jesus Christ, I’m going to be making a lot of changes.
Of all the historical figures you’ve researched for your books, who would you invite to a dinner party?
It’s a very strange question when you think about it. I mean, obviously I would choose Shakespeare, and probably Isaac Newton. But the thing is, you wouldn’t be learning anything – you’d be spending the whole dinner explaining to them why they’re not dead any more! I mean, they would just be saying, “What the fuck, what’s going on?” and it wouldn’t be like a congenial dinner party with everybody drinking and relaxed. And then, you know, who’s going to tell them that when the dinner is over, they have to be dead again – that they have to go back to their graves? I don’t want to be associated with this exercise.
You’ve written 21 books – do you have any rituals around starting or finishing a book?
It’s a funny thing – every single time I’ve ever written a book, it always feels as if I’ve never done this before. And even though it’s me every time, and I have only one voice, I seem to have to find that voice before I can get comfortable. So I really feel that the first page, or paragraph, is very, very important, and I cannot proceed onwards until I’ve got that. And once you’ve got the tone and the rhythm and the feel of things, then it all becomes much easier. [During the writing,] the only ritual I’ve had is that when I was much more active, I’d have two cups of coffee and then I’d go sit at my desk and start working, no matter what. And rituals for finishing? No – just finish it and then drink a lot of red wine.
You wrote a book about troublesome words and usage; what’s your number-one pet peeve?
Oh, I drive my grandchildren absolutely crazy because I will not let them say, you know, “me and Brian went to the store the other day” or “me and so-and-so”. They all do that, and I jump all over them every time. And I think they just think I’m being a fussy old man, but that is the verbal equivalent of having a tattoo on your head. I can’t abide it.
What book, album or film do you always return to, and why?
There are so many books in the world, and the amount of time to read them is so clearly finite, that I find it slightly a waste of time to go back and read something again. Same with movies. I did rewatch The Grand Budapest Hotel – not all the way through, but I went back and watched certain parts of it because I was just kind of enchanted with it and there were some scenes where I wanted to know, how did they film that?
What’s the best piece of advice you have ever received?
I don’t like being given advice. Something that always annoys me is when people say, “Do you mind if I give you a piece of advice?” My answer always is, “Yes, I do very much mind.” Some people who have read my books will tell me the things they didn’t like about the books as if I’ll really appreciate that and it’ll help me become a better writer the next time I do it. And again, no thanks.
I suppose the closest to “best advice” I could think of offhand would be off a Bob Dylan album, which is “don’t look back”. I think looking back is not, by and large, a good policy, because there’s nothing you can do about it, and you will end up dwelling on things that you wish you hadn’t done or hadn’t happened, or mistakes you made. And you can’t run the clock back and do it all over again, so just let it go.
Do you have a nemesis?
The whole current United States administration. Not just Trump – in fact, Trump almost least of all. It’s all the enablers – I can’t bear it that all of these people are allowing him and encouraging him. And it’s not just that they’re doing things that I don’t agree with politically, it’s that there’s so much malice and vindictiveness attached to all of it. I find that the most upsetting thing. And it’s my country, it’s where I come from. I haven’t lived there for a long time, but I remember a much nicer America than the one we’re looking at.
What are you secretly really good at?
I am the world’s best raker. I rake fantastically, and I love to rake. I don’t know why but I find it very, very satisfying. We have a big garden with a lot of trees. And the thing I love about raking is it is totally mindless, so I can listen to podcasts or audio books. And it’s actually pretty good exercise. You’re out in the fresh air.
I have this two-rake method: with one rake I scoop a whole bunch of leaves on to another, and then transfer them into a wheelbarrow. Most people have leaf blowers, which I find obnoxious. And it’s so satisfying when you’ve done a big bit of lawn to stand back and look at it, all tidy and clean and free of leaves. This, of course, is a big issue at this time of year in England.
What habit are you trying to kick?
I’m almost embarrassed to tell you this, but ever since I was a little boy, I have genuinely pretended to be able to vaporise people that I don’t like – like with X-ray vision – and I still do that. And it’s not a worthy way of going through life. But if I hold the door open for somebody, and they go through and they don’t say “thank you”, I look at them and I imagine them just sort of disintegrating. And I can’t say that I actually wish they would disintegrate, but it’s pretty close. And I just think: that’s not good, Bill. I mean, you really shouldn’t be doing this at 73 years old. So I’ve been trying to be more generous to my fellow humans. Not always very successfully.
A Short History of Nearly Everything 2.0 by Bill Bryson is out now through Penguin. The author is touring Australia and New Zealand in February 2026 with the live show The Best of Bill Bryson
