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Summary: OH TO BE IN ENGLAND NOW THAT BILL'S BEEN THERE !
Review: Bill Bryson does it again. Delights and entertains with his tour of the British Isle. Sharp, sarcastic, and oh so so funny ! Do yourself a favour and buy this book - it will entertain you, make you laugh out loud and make you want to meet this author who does not condemn Princess Di for "spending $28000 a year on leotards and making occasional crank phone calls to hunky military men (and who among us has'nt?) is his unanswerable reply." Bill, keep those books coming, my man, my devotion (and those of others) is going to make you a very very rich man. Thanks for the laughs !.
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Summary: Read This Book
Review: If you are even slightly interested in England or in the English, read this book. It has been years since a book made me laugh out loud. This one had me laughing so hard, I kept reading passages over and over. I even called my friends to read them passages over the phone. I can't recommend this book highly enough.
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Summary: There will always be an england...
Review: I have read and re-read this book in the way some Trekkies watch the cycle hundreds of time-(though hundreds would be an exaggeration in terms of my reads) It is fiendishly difficult to imagine a funnier ,non fiction book about england and i defy anyone to show me one that IS funnier!(Evelyn Waugh can be pretty damned funny -but he's no Bryson.) Bryson is a great companion as he finds his way around a country he obviously loves-a love that emanates from nearly every page. If you like travel/humor you can't go wrong with this book (though i admit it may be a 'guy' thing) I can also highly recommend Neither Here Nor There (howlingly funny 1970's era europe travelogue -another bill bryson book)) and "A Walk in the Woods " ..too a joyously funny adventure along the Appalachian trail. Bryson is the funniest writer alive(in my book) My explicit directions should i die suddenly include a direction for the the full Bryson catalogue to be entombed with me!
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Summary: Yet Another Brilliant Bryson Book
Review: If you have a sense of humour, you'll love this. If you don't, you won't. As simple as that.
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Summary: Soooo glad I didn't buy it!
Review: I borrowed the recorded book from a lending library. I am sooo glad I did not spend money for it, and I surely don't mind spending money for good books. Early in the book, Bryson refers to the RO-RO (roll on-roll off) ferry from Calais to Dover, as the roll on-roll over ferry, due to the numerous ferry accidents in recent years. That was the last piece of humor I found, and I expect it was not original.Mr. Bryson's endless hyperbole grew tiresome very quickly. Many of his attempts at humor are of the bathroom variety, and are not of much interest to one much beyond puberty. His four-letter word vocabularity reminded me of a teen- aged boy just out of earshot of any adults. It is amazing that people earn large sums for such drivel. Don't buy this book. Don't read this book. Don't listen to this book.
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Summary: I'm Swearing Off Bill Bryson Books, I Promise
Review: I have to stop reading these books. People are looking at me funny in restaurants and on the train when I burst out laughing. But Bryson's books are SO GOOD. What's a person to do? If you read A Walk in the Woods and felt a deep yearning to walk the Appalachian trail, haul out your suitcase. This book will make you want to follow Bryson's footsteps again as he travels across England, Wales, and Scotland by foot, by bus, and by train. He spends a day or so in dozens of small towns and cities, disecting them for our education and amusement. He tours galleries, musuems, and historic homes; visits pubs and restaurants; and stays in an amazing variety of shoddy hotels. (There are fine hotels in England. They just cost more than he is willing to pay.) Even if you don't plan to go to England anytime soon (and why not? it's a lovely country full of friendly people we Americans and Canadians can mostly understand) this book is a reminder to those of us who are far too insular that the world out there is different and that difference is a good and quite frequently amusing thing.
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Summary: This book is to England as Lost Continent is to America
Review: This book is a perfect followup to reading Bryson's book Lost Continent. I like this book significantly more. Mainly because it is about a country I am not familiar with so it was more interesting (the English are an odd bunch!). And the fact that Bryson made his travels by foot & mass transit is more admirable than his travel by car in Lost Continent. Bryson paints a nice picture of Britain, and as always includes his distaste for shoddy architecture that clashes with most of the old buildings through the country. I'll outline the typical chapter for you: Bryson arrives in a town. Finds a hotel, either nice or shoddy. Takes a stroll through the town, complains about or praises it. Finds a place to eat, more complaints or praises, finds a pub, drinks, comments on it, and finally goes to sleep. I'm sure some people find it quite dull, but I like it. If you're an American read this book and leave Lost Continent for the Britains to read.
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Summary: Good Old Blighty
Review: One feels as though one has visited England purely by Bryson's writing. This is a charming, witty and warm book that should be an essential travelling companion when visiting our neighbours across the pond.
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Summary: 50% Theroux, 45% Barry, 5% Keillor
Review: I truly enjoyed this book, and I've never even lived in England. Bill Bryson's style is one-half literate travelogue and social commentary, much like Paul Theroux, and one-half child-of-the-sixties humor a la Dave Barry, with a touch of Garrison Keillor's midwestern sensibility thrown in. If you enjoy Theroux, Barry, and Keillor, you've got to like Bill Bryson.
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Summary: American liberal whines and rants around Great Britain
Review: Bill Bryson is an anti-property Commie. He warms us up with stories of his frustration at how shop-owners are permitted to fit plate-glass windows into Victorian buildings. He expresses shock and disgust that homeowners are permitted to replace their old, drafty sash windows with modern uPVC windows. He is distraught that farmers are permitted to uproot hedgerows in order to produce food more efficiently. Once he has explained his contempt for the notion of private property, his big-government, statist ideas come as no surprise. None of these ideas, of-course, can be implemented without first confiscating private property. British investors have, en-masse, labelled the town of Morecambe a bad bet. Once-palatial hotels can be had for the price of a London semi-detached. Despite this lack of investor-confidence, Bill Bryson knows best. The answer is a new government agency which spends millions upon millions of pounds smartening up unfashionable seaside resorts and magically attracting hordes of crowds who suddenly decide that Morecambe and Hastings are their favourite locations after all. I wonder if it was Bill Bryson who thought it would be a good idea to build a giant tortoise in the middle of the London docklands. He is appalled that British Rail wanted to close down the Settle-Carlisle line because it didn't pay for itself. We're told that this wrong-headed thinking is an intractable legacy of the Thatcher decade. He mockingly claims that most 'worthwhile' things do not pay for themselves. The fact is, the only objective way of measuring whether or not something is 'worthwhile' is to subject it to the market. If consumers do not value it to the extent that they are prepared to pay its costs then it is not worthwhile. In Bryson's elitist, command-economy fantasy, enlightened intellectuals such as he should arbitrarily value goods and services and the masses should be forced to cough up to ensure that he can continue to enjoy them.
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