Bill is a prolific and highly successful American author, domiciled in England. His humorous travel tales are famous, but he is also a wonderful science communicator and won the Aventis and Descartes prizes for his best-selling “A Short History of Nearly Everything”. Bill has received numerous honours including an honorary OBE, and became the first non-Briton to be made an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Society. He is passionate about the countryside and was President of the Campaign to Protect Rural England for several years.