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A review by bianca89279
Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson
5.0
When in doubt and/or a funky reading mood, pick a Bill Bryson book - that's my (newest) motto.
As much as I'd love to re-read favourite books - if only to reacquaint myself with the story/characters and/or to check if they still thrill me as much, it's difficult to do so, when many unread books are beckoning me to pay attention. For the past month or so I've been a reluctant reader. Luckily, I'm still able to listen to audiobooks. So when perusing the library overdrive for audiobooks, I spotted this book and I had to download it even though I read it 10-15 years ago.
If the number of owned books is an indication of how much you love a certain author, then the eleven Bill Bryson books gathering dust on my bookshelf make him my favourite author. My love for him, better said for his wit, humour, intelligence, sarcasm, curiosity, observation skills and snark, has reached its highest level and after all these years it's still intact.
This book is a collection of weekly columns penned by Bryson between 1996-98. Dated, right? Or is it? Let's see:
- mass incarceration for minor offences, injustice, the death penalty issues relating to the immense costs, inequality of who gets put to death and most importantly, people wrongly convicted - still current and getting worse;
- airline companies not doing a very good job as service providers - check
- people being dumber and dumber, and the increasing trend of dumbing down - check
- too much choice, too much of anything, over-consumerism, disregard for the environment and conserving resources - check
- mindless shopping - check
- having a million and one TV channels and nothing to watch - check.
I'm guessing most people still have to drive everywhere as most places don't make any allowances for pedestrians?
Things that have changed: desktop computers seem to have put the serial numbers in more accessible places :-), oh, and who remembers the last time they spoke to a real person in a company about installing/setting up anything you bought from them?
While listening to this, I couldn't help wonder "what would Bryson make of today's this and that". I wish he still wrote weekly columns. I would even buy a magazine/newspaper subscription to read his musings.
As much as I'd love to re-read favourite books - if only to reacquaint myself with the story/characters and/or to check if they still thrill me as much, it's difficult to do so, when many unread books are beckoning me to pay attention. For the past month or so I've been a reluctant reader. Luckily, I'm still able to listen to audiobooks. So when perusing the library overdrive for audiobooks, I spotted this book and I had to download it even though I read it 10-15 years ago.
If the number of owned books is an indication of how much you love a certain author, then the eleven Bill Bryson books gathering dust on my bookshelf make him my favourite author. My love for him, better said for his wit, humour, intelligence, sarcasm, curiosity, observation skills and snark, has reached its highest level and after all these years it's still intact.
This book is a collection of weekly columns penned by Bryson between 1996-98. Dated, right? Or is it? Let's see:
- mass incarceration for minor offences, injustice, the death penalty issues relating to the immense costs, inequality of who gets put to death and most importantly, people wrongly convicted - still current and getting worse;
- airline companies not doing a very good job as service providers - check
- people being dumber and dumber, and the increasing trend of dumbing down - check
- too much choice, too much of anything, over-consumerism, disregard for the environment and conserving resources - check
- mindless shopping - check
- having a million and one TV channels and nothing to watch - check.
I'm guessing most people still have to drive everywhere as most places don't make any allowances for pedestrians?
Things that have changed: desktop computers seem to have put the serial numbers in more accessible places :-), oh, and who remembers the last time they spoke to a real person in a company about installing/setting up anything you bought from them?
While listening to this, I couldn't help wonder "what would Bryson make of today's this and that". I wish he still wrote weekly columns. I would even buy a magazine/newspaper subscription to read his musings.