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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
I will caveat my review by first saying I am decidedly an Anglophile. I like anything from the United Kingdom and Ireland. If something has even a hint of British, Irish, Scottish, Welsh, James Bond, Harry Potter, Top Gear, Premier league football, pubs, or Sherlock Holmes, I'm in. Ok, not One Direction or Spice Girls, I am a bit of a music snob. Or their food, it is not my first choice. Google Jim Gaffigan's bit about ketchup. You can thank me later. But other than that, I am more than mildly interested in a book about traveling around the old country. Heck, I have even been known to watch British Parliament on C-Span (its way smarter than our government and more entertaining by far).
My husband, who is a Bryson fan, warned me this is not his best work. As I read through, I imagined Notes was written by either Statler or Waldorf (the old guys on the Muppets) while they were still middle aged, had not found their jeering soul mate, nor had they hit their full sarcastic stride. Bryson has a dry British-ish wit, but not that biting. I also alternately imagined the book being read by Stephen Fry, any of the boys from Top Gear (especially during the driving bits), or Patrick Stewart. That made the experience more enjoyable to say the least.
Bryson wrote the book in 1995, so I had to constantly remind myself that the internet had yet to be the thing it is today. I was consistently frustrated as he meandered and got lost or visited another place that was closed or boring. Does he not know about google, trip advisor, foursquare? Oh right, those were not around yet. There were not iPods yet. There is something romantic about Bryson just wandering into cities on a whim, gambling on a hotel of some sort (probably losing) and then hiking near and far. I have also traveled a fair bit by myself, and throughout the book felt a longing to take a trip soon. There is entirely too much about malls and sad buildings made of concrete in the 60s and 70s. Part of the appeal of the book is he has no plan, but it would be a more engaging book if he had a plan.
I found much of the book wanting in specifics. While trying to dabble in travel book and writing a love letter to the United Kingdom, I feel like Mr. Bryson never really achieves a good version of either. Is he on an extended business trip and is forced to give a long review? There is too much talk about small hotel rooms and the Indian food he has before an early evening. He throws out enough history that we know he is knowledgeable, but I'm never really quite satisfied with the few specifics he provides. Bryson's writing does shine through the subject. There are points when I laughed out loud and had to read a few passages out loud to my husband. For example:
"In the morning, I was roused early by my alarm clock and rose reluctantly, for I having my favourite dream - the one where I own a large, remote island, not unlike those off this section of the Scottish coast, to which I invite carefully selected people, like the guy who invented the Christmas tree light that go out when one bulb blows, the person in charge of escalator maintenance at Heathrow Airport, nearly anyone who has ever written a user's manual for a personal computer, and of course John Selwyn Grummer, let them loose with a very small amount of survival rations, and then go out with braying dogs and mercilessly hunt them down - but then, I remembered that I had a big exciting day in front of me." Yes, that is one long sentence, but who has not thought of a handful of people they would want to hunt down with braying dogs. And he uses the English spelling of "favourite." So cute.
While I cannot recommend this book to first time Bryson readers specifically, I can recommend Bryson overall. I think [b:A Walk in the Woods|9791|A Walk in the Woods Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail|Bill Bryson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388189974s/9791.jpg|613469] is in my reading queue (see what I did there) and that would be a better place to start. As I read, I will imagine he sounds like Hagrid and he acts like a proper British version of Drunk Uncle from SNL. I also cannot help but plan a trip to Britain or Ireland in the near future.
My husband, who is a Bryson fan, warned me this is not his best work. As I read through, I imagined Notes was written by either Statler or Waldorf (the old guys on the Muppets) while they were still middle aged, had not found their jeering soul mate, nor had they hit their full sarcastic stride. Bryson has a dry British-ish wit, but not that biting. I also alternately imagined the book being read by Stephen Fry, any of the boys from Top Gear (especially during the driving bits), or Patrick Stewart. That made the experience more enjoyable to say the least.
Bryson wrote the book in 1995, so I had to constantly remind myself that the internet had yet to be the thing it is today. I was consistently frustrated as he meandered and got lost or visited another place that was closed or boring. Does he not know about google, trip advisor, foursquare? Oh right, those were not around yet. There were not iPods yet
I found much of the book wanting in specifics. While trying to dabble in travel book and writing a love letter to the United Kingdom, I feel like Mr. Bryson never really achieves a good version of either. Is he on an extended business trip and is forced to give a long review? There is too much talk about small hotel rooms and the Indian food he has before an early evening. He throws out enough history that we know he is knowledgeable, but I'm never really quite satisfied with the few specifics he provides. Bryson's writing does shine through the subject. There are points when I laughed out loud and had to read a few passages out loud to my husband. For example:
"In the morning, I was roused early by my alarm clock and rose reluctantly, for I having my favourite dream - the one where I own a large, remote island, not unlike those off this section of the Scottish coast, to which I invite carefully selected people, like the guy who invented the Christmas tree light that go out when one bulb blows, the person in charge of escalator maintenance at Heathrow Airport, nearly anyone who has ever written a user's manual for a personal computer, and of course John Selwyn Grummer, let them loose with a very small amount of survival rations, and then go out with braying dogs and mercilessly hunt them down - but then, I remembered that I had a big exciting day in front of me." Yes, that is one long sentence, but who has not thought of a handful of people they would want to hunt down with braying dogs. And he uses the English spelling of "favourite." So cute.
While I cannot recommend this book to first time Bryson readers specifically, I can recommend Bryson overall. I think [b:A Walk in the Woods|9791|A Walk in the Woods Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail|Bill Bryson|https://d.gr-assets.com/books/1388189974s/9791.jpg|613469] is in my reading queue (see what I did there) and that would be a better place to start. As I read, I will imagine he sounds like Hagrid and he acts like a proper British version of Drunk Uncle from SNL. I also cannot help but plan a trip to Britain or Ireland in the near future.
A must read for all those embarking on a prolonged visit to England -- he is so funny! There is a section about his encounter with a Glasgow taxi driver and then pub owner that had me laughing so hard I could barely breathe. I'm glad to have this as a travel guide.
I didn't even make it a quarter of the way through this book. I think you need to have spent some extended time in England to get most of his jokes, and that's on top of the fact that it's over 20 years old. I checked out some other reviews (it seems like most people I follow have read this!) to see if it would get better, and the consensus seemed to be, "It starts out strong but the middle is slow and boring," so I thought it was time to put it down. If in some future life I spend more time in England than the two days I was in London, it might be worth picking up again, but by then the references will be even more outdated, so I think this is probably a lost cause.
Algumas descrições neste livro são muito hilárias. É, sem dúvida, uma forma diferente de visitar a Inglaterra a partir da visão de alguém de fora. Muito divertido, principalmente a questão dos nomes.
Humorous perspective from an American who loves the Brits. Bryson's 7 week journey around the British isles is filled with history, dry wit, and quirky characters. I loved the audio version.
The quick wit and humour of Douglas Adam’s , but terribly dated!! Especially as I listened to the audiobook with some pretty offensive accents…so it’s a product of it’s time for sure
Finally finished. Cute, but it is was more apparent to me in this book vs others of his that he is really in love with himself.
slow-paced
Gradually I learned that there are in fact two kinds of walking in Britain, namely the everyday kind that gets you to the pub and, all being well, back home again, and the more earnest type that involves stout boots, Ordnance Survey maps in plastic pouches, knapsacks with sandwiches and flasks of tea, and, in its terminal phase, the wearing of khaki shorts in inappropriate weather.
Look, I didn't actually have a great reading experience with this book. But I intellectually understand that this book is well-written, well-researched, and very, very funny. I just wish I had read it when I had been in the right place mentally to read a book without a proper, driving plot.
This is a stunning and frank guide to Britain as a whole, and it approaches it in an immensely personal and enjoyable way. It's Bill Bryson's farewell love letter to the island after nearly 20 years living there, and it feels like it. This is a man who loves a place enough to know how to make fun of it, to know what he hates about it, and to know he's nowhere near knowing everything.
You can’t do that, you know. You can’t tear down fine old structures and then pretend that they are still there. But that is exactly what has happened in Britain in the past thirty years, and not just with buildings.
The stumbling block for this book is the protagonist, which is unfortunate considering this book is first-person non-fiction and the writer is pretty much the only character. Because Bryson brings you along on his walking, train riding, hiking, and bussing trip so well, you cringe the way you would while travelling with someone who's a bit tactless when he goes on vaguely sexist tangents about how unreasonable women are, gets high and mighty about his own intelligence, and is needlessly rude to strangers and customer service workers. Did this book need two pages based around the clause "and while we’re on this rather daring sexist interlude"? No.
Here are the instructions for being a pigeon: (1) Walk around aimlessly for a while, pecking at cigarette butts and other inappropriate items. (2) Take fright at someone walking along the platform and fly off to a girder. (3) Have a shit. (4) Repeat.
Nevertheless, because Bill Bryson is a highly engaging writer who researched the absolute crap out of this book and perfectly balances frankness and reverence (and hates pigeons as much as I do), this is a highly enjoyable book. Good for reading when you have a lazy day, and a nice reminder to me that I don't actually hate memoirs on principle. Just don't read it when you're not ready for exactly what this book was built to be: a meandering, tangential story of one American man's love of Great Britain.
What a wondrous place this was—crazy as all get-out, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree.
Look, I didn't actually have a great reading experience with this book. But I intellectually understand that this book is well-written, well-researched, and very, very funny. I just wish I had read it when I had been in the right place mentally to read a book without a proper, driving plot.
This is a stunning and frank guide to Britain as a whole, and it approaches it in an immensely personal and enjoyable way. It's Bill Bryson's farewell love letter to the island after nearly 20 years living there, and it feels like it. This is a man who loves a place enough to know how to make fun of it, to know what he hates about it, and to know he's nowhere near knowing everything.
You can’t do that, you know. You can’t tear down fine old structures and then pretend that they are still there. But that is exactly what has happened in Britain in the past thirty years, and not just with buildings.
The stumbling block for this book is the protagonist, which is unfortunate considering this book is first-person non-fiction and the writer is pretty much the only character. Because Bryson brings you along on his walking, train riding, hiking, and bussing trip so well, you cringe the way you would while travelling with someone who's a bit tactless when he goes on vaguely sexist tangents about how unreasonable women are, gets high and mighty about his own intelligence, and is needlessly rude to strangers and customer service workers. Did this book need two pages based around the clause "and while we’re on this rather daring sexist interlude"? No.
Here are the instructions for being a pigeon: (1) Walk around aimlessly for a while, pecking at cigarette butts and other inappropriate items. (2) Take fright at someone walking along the platform and fly off to a girder. (3) Have a shit. (4) Repeat.
Nevertheless, because Bill Bryson is a highly engaging writer who researched the absolute crap out of this book and perfectly balances frankness and reverence (and hates pigeons as much as I do), this is a highly enjoyable book. Good for reading when you have a lazy day, and a nice reminder to me that I don't actually hate memoirs on principle. Just don't read it when you're not ready for exactly what this book was built to be: a meandering, tangential story of one American man's love of Great Britain.
What a wondrous place this was—crazy as all get-out, of course, but adorable to the tiniest degree.