Notes from a Small Island

Rating:
Summary: The warning was correct
Review: In the edition of the book I read there was a warning not to read on the bus, on in public. You will begin snorting and chuckling. It's a funny, sweet book that make the 'small island' travels of Paul Theroux and Jonathan Rabin seem not as much fun. I pick Bill Bryson as my travelling companion.



Rating:
Summary: Tepid
Review: Maybe its me, but I just don't get Mr Bryson's books so it seems.
Having been to Australia I picked up his version of his travels there and found it at best mildly amusing, and at worst inaccurate and banal, but as I'm open to the idea that maybe I started on the wrong book, I picked up this one as a secondary attempt to see why people like him so much.
Now I know that negative reviews on here seem to be frowned upon, and hardly ever classed as helpful, but I'm struggling to find a positive. Yes, I know its not supposed to be a reference book, and is an individuals projection of the aspects of his adventure around the Uk which he found amusing / noteworthy and indeed, with a few pints in the pub and a few mates, the stories told may raise a chuckle or three, but in a book? Perhaps im just lacking an affinity with the author, but then... isn't that what the books he writes are designed to create? In which case, for me at least, it just isn't happening.


Rating:
Summary: Funny in parts but mostly tedious
Review: Too bad this book wasn't 60% shorter. I think Bryson must have had a minimum word count he had to meet. Some parts of this book are laugh-out-loud funny, but these are needles in a haystack. Throughout much of the audio version of this book I just zoned while Bryson whined about crummy architecture. (We GOT it: socialists make crappy buildings.) Thanks to Bryson I have improved my drivetime daydreaming skills.
I expected the book to be an analysis of the Brits from an American point of view. This is not Toqueville, however, and since Bryson spent so much time in Britain, I don't think he offers the right perspective. His view is tainted by his 20 years as an expatriate. (His book on the U.S. from the view of a returning exile I expect is much more pertinent.)
Bryson loses many opportunities. He doesn't talk to anybody. He doesn't approach the book from the perspective of a prospective American tourist either. Rather I think his book was his way of doing one last trip through Britain while deducting it as a business expense.