Down Under by Bill Bryson (Black Swan, £7.99)

Australia - land of Aborigine 'dreamtime', harsh sun, lush tropics and amazingly cosmopolitan Sydney - where do you start?

Well, of course, it has to be Sydney, and after a 14-hour flight from the USA and the loss of a whole day (you cross the international date line) Bill is up for a day in Sydney. It is the start of his big adventure.

Australia harbours (and nourishes) the most poisonous and deadly creatures in the world. One of the snakes injects enough poison for an elephant to fall over, let alone a person.

The jelly-fish can kill you if you get stung enough and the seas also hide other nasty creatures, especially sharks.

Imagine then our brave hero - he goes for a swim at Manly, one of the most fun places near Sydney, gets his boogie board out, and promptly sinks. Perhaps he will be safer on land! So starts his journeying. No worries!

His enthusiasm at the wonders of Australia is catching - it makes you want to go there if you haven't been. If you have, as I have been lucky to do, it awakens some of the joys of being in that warmly welcoming, yet hostile country. We won't meet all the characters that Bill did, but they certainly have a surfeit of them.

The people are fun and hospitable - unlike the spiders and snakes, the food an incredible mix of nationalities and the country is an amazing amalgam of desert, sea, mountain and sky.

Read this book if you have any thought of going there - read this book to re-kindle your desire to go again. Don't forget, as Bill Bryson reminds us - Australia is home to the exceptional World Heritage sites of the Great Barrier Reef and the wet tropics of Queensland, and of the 13 that meet the criteria of UNESCO, four are in Australia.

It's a bonza place!

Annie Dendy