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3.79 AVERAGE
3.79 AVERAGE
Bill Bryson is always fun and this was a perfect winter slump read. I enjoyed it very much.
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
After living in England for 20 years, Bill Bryson and his family return to the US and, I'm a Stranger Here Myself contains a compilation of essays Bryson wrote for a newspaper shortly after the move, covering topics from rental cars and generational wastefulness, to living in a cold climate and the United States Postal Service. Most of these anectdotes are funny some are reflective, most are out of date. This is through no fault of the Author's, seeing that this title was published in 1999. Sometimes the time lapse made it funnier, sometimes more depressing (the environmental climate crisis has gotten worse, not better) and sometimes made me a little wistful for "simpler" times.
This was great on audio and is easy to dip in and out of since most essays are short and can be listened to in under ten minutes. This is my first Bill Bryson book and I will be trying others, but this wouldn't be my recommendation for someone else that hasn't read anything by him.
This was great on audio and is easy to dip in and out of since most essays are short and can be listened to in under ten minutes. This is my first Bill Bryson book and I will be trying others, but this wouldn't be my recommendation for someone else that hasn't read anything by him.
I really enjoy Bill Bryson's writing style- conversational at times, to the point and wry humor. He's writing to a British audience, but I didn't feel like that I was not part of his original audience. I especially enjoyed/agreed with his thoughts on small town America and how we are too busy with our automatic lives to enjoy everything around us- that's why I love my walking neighborhood and will continue to make an effort to get out and partake of it whenever I can.
I lived overseas for a while and was struck by how much I learned about my own country coming back after several years absence. I saw so many things I had never noticed before. That clarity gave me the ability to make actual decisions about my life rather than blindly going with the flow. Given my experience I figured this book would be right up my alley, but it turned out to be fusty and not particulalry insightful. Did I smile while reading this? I did. I think I actually laughed several times. Did I take anything from the book that struck me as unique or challenging. Nope. Bryson seems like he would be fun to hang out with, charming and funny, but that is just not enough for me.
These are notes, in fact, they are reprints of articles provided for a column about America in the British Mail on Sunday's Night and Day magazine. Mainly for that reason, I do not agree with the Independent reviewer's comment printed on the cover that this book is one of his best. Bryson is capable of sustained research and presentation of topics such as Shakespeare, the English language and even history of science in a comprehensive way accessible to the layman. Having said that, and although this collection, written in the late 1990s, sometimes seems a little dated, Bryson's observations are acute and bring home the distinctiveness of American culture as opposed to British. This could possibly only have been done by someone with Bryson's perspective - American born, 20 years' residence in the UK, freshly returned with family to the US - and his inimitable wit and self-deprecatory style. It is a light read, to be sipped and laughed over but, as with the best humour, worthy of reflection on the revealed truths.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
Though a collection of magazine columns as opposed to a proper book, and as such perfect for dipping in and out of, it holds together remarkably well as a coherent narrative of Bryson's love/hate relationship with the America he calls home.
This has Bryson's usual humour which is always entertaining, but the whining is dialled a bit too high for me in this one. Also, being a collection of newspaper articles, it doesn't have the cohesion of a proper book.