24: Notes From A Small Island by Bill Bryson
Book Twenty-Four
Title: Notes From A Small Island
Author: Bill Bryson
Page Count: 325
Genre: Travelogue
Synopsis/Thoughts: After twenty years spent living in England, Bill Bryson decided it was time to pack the family up and move to America, "the land of shopping malls, one-hundred-channel television and hamburgers the size of a baby's head". Before he leaves, he takes a farewell trip around the the isle, visiting various places and chronicling his experiences.
Let me just say, before I say anything else, that Bill Bryson is one of my all-time favorite authors. But I just did not like this book. One of the reasons why I love Bill Bryson's books is because somehow he manages to scrounge out all kinds of unusual anecdotes and odd little bits of obscure history to include in his narratives, which I usually find side-splittingly funny. There was noticeable lack of this in Notes From A Small Island. Instead, all we get is the author taking the train and/or bus from one obscure little English village to another, where he complains about the weather and how there's nothing to do or to see, has dinner in a pub and complains about the cleanliness/service/quality of fare, retires grumpily to a shabby motel and complains some more, then gets up the next morning and does it all again. Personally, that sounds to me like the worst vacation ever...and he kept at it for SEVEN WEEKS. As far as I can remember (and I just finished the book this afternoon, so it's pretty bad that details are already starting to fuzz) he doesn't seem to visit a single place of note or interest that one would expect to find in a book about traveling in England. Instead he wanders around nondescript towns and cities and indulges in what seems to be a favorite pastime of his...complaining about the architecture. If I had had to read one more rant about how ugly modern buildings are or how every shopping mall on the face of the planet needs to be blown up I probably would have thrown the book at a wall. I agree with him, to a point, but it got to be very tiresome. And where were the interesting little nuggets of little-known information that have always made his books so near and dear to me? Nowhere to be found. It's a good thing that this was not my first Bryson book or I probably would have been put off him forever. I can't understand it, really, it's so unlike all of the other books I've read by him. Maybe he was body-snatched? I can't say. Either way, if you are planning to read something by this author I would suggest you stay as far away from this as possible. Go for something like In A Sunburned Country (my personal favorite) or A Walk In The Woods (also pretty good).
Title: Notes From A Small Island
Author: Bill Bryson
Page Count: 325
Genre: Travelogue
Synopsis/Thoughts: After twenty years spent living in England, Bill Bryson decided it was time to pack the family up and move to America, "the land of shopping malls, one-hundred-channel television and hamburgers the size of a baby's head". Before he leaves, he takes a farewell trip around the the isle, visiting various places and chronicling his experiences.
Let me just say, before I say anything else, that Bill Bryson is one of my all-time favorite authors. But I just did not like this book. One of the reasons why I love Bill Bryson's books is because somehow he manages to scrounge out all kinds of unusual anecdotes and odd little bits of obscure history to include in his narratives, which I usually find side-splittingly funny. There was noticeable lack of this in Notes From A Small Island. Instead, all we get is the author taking the train and/or bus from one obscure little English village to another, where he complains about the weather and how there's nothing to do or to see, has dinner in a pub and complains about the cleanliness/service/quality of fare, retires grumpily to a shabby motel and complains some more, then gets up the next morning and does it all again. Personally, that sounds to me like the worst vacation ever...and he kept at it for SEVEN WEEKS. As far as I can remember (and I just finished the book this afternoon, so it's pretty bad that details are already starting to fuzz) he doesn't seem to visit a single place of note or interest that one would expect to find in a book about traveling in England. Instead he wanders around nondescript towns and cities and indulges in what seems to be a favorite pastime of his...complaining about the architecture. If I had had to read one more rant about how ugly modern buildings are or how every shopping mall on the face of the planet needs to be blown up I probably would have thrown the book at a wall. I agree with him, to a point, but it got to be very tiresome. And where were the interesting little nuggets of little-known information that have always made his books so near and dear to me? Nowhere to be found. It's a good thing that this was not my first Bryson book or I probably would have been put off him forever. I can't understand it, really, it's so unlike all of the other books I've read by him. Maybe he was body-snatched? I can't say. Either way, if you are planning to read something by this author I would suggest you stay as far away from this as possible. Go for something like In A Sunburned Country (my personal favorite) or A Walk In The Woods (also pretty good).