Bill Bryson

For a travel writer, Bryson isn't very much of a traveler. 'Mr. Bryson's career as a travel writer was wholly unplanned; he is not, he insisted, the adventurous type. "I once met Colin Thubron," he said, referring to the celebrated British author of "Mirror to Damascus," "Jerusalem," "Istanbul" and "In Siberia." "He genuinely likes to go to places where he might get malaria. But I absolutely don't want to get malaria and I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want to sleep on anything hard, or worry that an alligator is going to come up and take my leg off."' More... (Via.)