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3.69 AVERAGE
3.69 AVERAGE
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.
He has some good humor that made me laugh out loud. Enjoyed reading about his adventures and it made me want to go visit. Some of the humor is perhaps a bit outdated today.
I did enjoy this book, being an American a bit obsessed with the UK. Many parts were laugh-out-loud funny. He has a knack for just giving the interesting bits of the history of the town. I did notice that he seems a bit grumpy, and it seemed like his mood at the time of a visit to a new town would unduly color his opinion of the place. Also there were a few scenes where he was quite rude to people! But overall a fun travelogue.
3.5 stars.
Two years ago I was in Bath, touring the eponymous Roman Baths, and was provided with a choice of two audio tours - one by a historian, and one by someone named Bill Bryson. Since, by this point in my trip, I had become a very big fan of audio tours, I started listening to both. In the Roman Baths there is, among other things, a fantastically old and incredibly complete bronze-covered bust of the goddess Minerva in full war costume. In his commentary on the bust, Bryson said that the bust was impressive enough, but Minerva would really be more likable if she smiled more. Disgusted and tired of men, my best friend and I immediately abandoned the second audio commentary. “He’s not even British,” I declared, after googling Bill Bryson, and resolved to loathe him forever.
All of that is to say that you can imagine how annoyed I was to find that Bryson is actually, on occasion, very funny, and how embarrassing it was for me to quite enjoy “Notes from a Small Island.”
Now, of course, I have the expected caveats. First of all, my instincts were not entirely wrong - Bryson is both sexist and a bit callous regarding race, privilege, and the darker aspects of the history of Great Britain. There’s a lot of unnecessary asides in here that boil down to “bitches be shopping.”
This is also by no means a page turner. The plot, if you can call it that, is that a middle aged American ambling through small towns throughout Great Britain, staying in hotels, eating at pubs and restaurants, riding on buses and trains, and commenting extensively on the local architecture. He never says anything particularly profound. There are very few adventures or moments of tension. You won’t even learn that much about British history, though the occasional anecdotes are very interesting when they do appear (for example, he wanders through a village that was entirely evacuated during WWII to make room for military testing).
That being said - as I write this review, in an alternate universe I would have been walking through London right now, drinking a cup of tea and queuing to visit the British Library with my fiancée, on a trip that was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. With that in mind, this book is a balm - a gentle, ambling, and yes, occasionally hilarious wander through Great Britain right when I miss it the most.
Two years ago I was in Bath, touring the eponymous Roman Baths, and was provided with a choice of two audio tours - one by a historian, and one by someone named Bill Bryson. Since, by this point in my trip, I had become a very big fan of audio tours, I started listening to both. In the Roman Baths there is, among other things, a fantastically old and incredibly complete bronze-covered bust of the goddess Minerva in full war costume. In his commentary on the bust, Bryson said that the bust was impressive enough, but Minerva would really be more likable if she smiled more. Disgusted and tired of men, my best friend and I immediately abandoned the second audio commentary. “He’s not even British,” I declared, after googling Bill Bryson, and resolved to loathe him forever.
All of that is to say that you can imagine how annoyed I was to find that Bryson is actually, on occasion, very funny, and how embarrassing it was for me to quite enjoy “Notes from a Small Island.”
Now, of course, I have the expected caveats. First of all, my instincts were not entirely wrong - Bryson is both sexist and a bit callous regarding race, privilege, and the darker aspects of the history of Great Britain. There’s a lot of unnecessary asides in here that boil down to “bitches be shopping.”
This is also by no means a page turner. The plot, if you can call it that, is that a middle aged American ambling through small towns throughout Great Britain, staying in hotels, eating at pubs and restaurants, riding on buses and trains, and commenting extensively on the local architecture. He never says anything particularly profound. There are very few adventures or moments of tension. You won’t even learn that much about British history, though the occasional anecdotes are very interesting when they do appear (for example, he wanders through a village that was entirely evacuated during WWII to make room for military testing).
That being said - as I write this review, in an alternate universe I would have been walking through London right now, drinking a cup of tea and queuing to visit the British Library with my fiancée, on a trip that was cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic. With that in mind, this book is a balm - a gentle, ambling, and yes, occasionally hilarious wander through Great Britain right when I miss it the most.
funny
lighthearted
fast-paced
I feel like maybe this one didn't age too well, or I just had hyped it up too much to myself and could only leave feeling disappointed. Large chunks of this book are him complaining over and over again about modern buildings, bus and train schedules, food that's too expensive, or shabby hotels. Literally every city he falls into the same traps of not knowing where to go, waiting too long to eat and then being grumpy with what he ends up with. He even admits in Scotland that his view of the city is affected by his interactions with people and how hungry/hung over he is. Sometimes he gets especially annoying and he'll go off and really nitpicky things like where he'll complain about not understanding chopsticks, yell at a fast food employee for trying to do his job and upsell, and be horribly mean to overweight people because they ate the last dessert he wanted. A lot of this book he tries to be funny but just sounds really smug, making fun of everyone but trying to make it okay because he kinda makes fun of himself. At the end of the book he starts explaining that traveling alone makes you a little weird but I feel if he had put that in the beginning I would have given him more slack. Also he often complains about newer buildings and modern architecture, but then complains about cathedrals charging for admission, how are cathedrals supposed to stay open and not crumble to the ground if they don't charge for something? Not a lot of people just throw money at them.
funny
lighthearted
relaxing
medium-paced