I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

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I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

3.87 of 5 stars 3.87 · rating details · 26,546 ratings · 1,398 reviews

After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly 3 million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens--as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty...more

Paperback, 304 pages

Published June 6th 2000 by Broadway (first published 1998)

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Jul 07, 2008 Mia Friel rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Bill Bryson book I have read, which, I am told, was a mistake. I know several people who consider Bryson one of their favorite authors and they all seem to agree that this book is not a good "ambassador" for the rest of his work.

This book is a collection of newspaper articles that document his move from England to the United States. Most of them explain his bewilderment toward American culture and customs and often longs for the "simplicity" of the British lifestyle. I was ori...more

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Aug 04, 2008 Az rated it 2 of 5 stars

Bill Bryson grew up in Iowa, then spent twenty years in England. He has returned to the U.S. with his British wife and children. I'm a Stranger Here is selections from his newspaper column which chronicles his experiences. Some of them are funny, like "Dying Accents" and "The Best American Holiday". Others, particularly anything is which he tries to mock the writing style on instructional booklets, electronics, the government (I'm all for mocking the government, but he just doesn't do it well),...more

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Jul 08, 2009 Cecily rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: miscellaneous-non-fiction, american-canadian

If you like reading brief, amusing but unrelated snippets about the oddities of life, this may be the book for you. There’s nothing very original in it, but some readers no doubt enjoy the empathy of saying “Oh, I’ve always thought that too”.

It’s a collection of short articles written for a weekly British news magazine about adapting to life in the US, after 20 years living in Britain – comparing the two countries and comparing the US of his youth with the version he now finds himself in. And gu...more

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Feb 11, 2008 Robert Beveridge rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: finished, owned-and-gave-away

Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself (Broadway Books, 1999)

At funtrivia.com, one of the (many) ways a quiz can go from a relatively high ranking to "very poor" between the time I start and the time I finish is a factual error that causes me to get a question wrong. Research is a beautiful thing.

Half of me is willing to give Bill Bryson the benefit of the doubt; the other half is ready to excoriate him on what may be a false impression. I'll attempt to keep it reserved.

Bryson's column "The Was...more Bill Bryson, I'm a Stranger Here Myself (Broadway Books, 1999)

At funtrivia.com, one of the (many) ways a quiz can go from a relatively high ranking to "very poor" between the time I start and the time I finish is a factual error that causes me to get a question wrong. Research is a beautiful thing.

Half of me is willing to give Bill Bryson the benefit of the doubt; the other half is ready to excoriate him on what may be a false impression. I'll attempt to keep it reserved.

Bryson's column "The Waste Generation," about two-thirds of the way through I'm a Stranger Here Myself, starts off with a statistic that's quite simply wrong ("One of the most arresting statistics I have seen in a good while is that 5 percent of all the energy used in the United States is consumed by computers that have been left on all night." Wrong; a computer and a monitor, left on twenty-four hours a day, together consume approximately a dollar's worth of electricity per month. The computer is one of the most energy-efficient machines on the planet today). The American home computer revolution happened while Bryson was out of the country, so I'm willing to give him the benefit of the doubt. It would have been nice, however, had he mentioned his source.

A forgivable error, perhaps, though basing a whole column on it is rather disturbing. But the part of the column that bugs me is farther down: "I have glanced out hotel room windows late at night, in a variety of cities, and been struck by the fact that lots of lights in lots of office buildings are still burning... why don't we turn these things off?... Why, after all, go through the irksome annoyance of waiting twenty seconds for your computer to warm up each morning when you can have it at your immediate beck by leaving it on all night?"

Two different questions with two entirely different answers, but Bryson goes on to turn it into a discussion of American wastefulness with its natural resources. He may be reaching the right conclusion, but if so, he's doing a 180 from where he started. To answer the latter question first, in modern computers with the Energy Saver features (which do nothing of the sort) turned off, it takes less power to leave a computer on all night than it does to shut it down and start it up. (To address another point he makes in the same passage, it's also more efficient to leave cars running for short periods rather than turning them off and back on. Any electrical appliance requires something of an electrical security deposit to get started, just like an apartment renter has to put down "amount of monthly rent times three" or somesuch in order to move in.) The former answer takes longer, but the short answer is that the Federal government, during the 1974 oil crisis, was taking out full-page ads in various magazines (I used to see them on a regular basis in Time) telling us that leaving lights on all night in buildings is what we SHOULD do, because electric lights give off heat, and at the time it was cheaper to heat a building by leaving its lights on and cranking the gas heat down six degrees or so. That situation went away with the end of the fuel crisis, of course, but the government never took those ads out in time.

Here's where I get a little wonky with Bryson. The subtitle of the book is "Notes on returning to America aftetr twenty years away." If the number is, in fact, twenty, then Bryson was in the country when the Government was running those full-page ads. And thus, given that he's all too well aware of the average Joe's lack of common sense, he could have come to the same conclusion by poking fun at the fact that the average Joe never stopped leaving the lights on all night after the fuel crisis was over. But he doesn't.

Humor is a wonderful thing (and let me hasten to say that there is a good deal of it here), but one of the prerequisites for humor of any sort should be that's it's based on fact. The humorist is, in many cases (and certainly in this one) using humor to get a point across, and doing so with factual errors leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Factual errors by ignorance leave less of a bad taste in my mouth than factual errors by design. That's what I see in this essay, and it makes me wonder how many others, with circumstances with which I'm less acquainted in this book, are founded on the same sleight of hand. Perhaps one error shouldn't taint my view of a whole book, but I can't help it. After all, when an expert witness admits he falsified one fact in one trial that changed the outcome, how often do you think he'll be getting called to testify after that?

I try to give Bryson the benefit of the doubt for most of it, because his heart's mostly in the right place, and his brand of humor is the understated, easy kind that resides at the top of the humor heap. But I'll never be able to read another word of Bryson's without the 1974 energy crisis in the back of my head. ** 1/2 (less)

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Sep 28, 2008 Cara rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

This is the first Bill Bryson book I have read and I found it laugh out loud funny. My husband was given it as a christmas gift and when he started reading it kept reading bits out to me because he thought they were so funny. We gave up on that approach and started reading it together and both loved it. Some of that might have been that we have just moved back to Australia from the US and enjoyed the reminders of some of the more quirky aspects of US culture that we miss, and also could relate t...more

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Dec 13, 2007 Colin rated it 3 of 5 stars

I rated this a little lower than other books by Bryson because it shows the constraints of being a collection of newspaper columns, written to a length limit and a deadline. That said, there were some real gems in the mix. The column about re-learning an adult vernacular (spackle? Polyfiller?) was good for a laugh - at the time, I was struggling with the same thing over infants' paraphernalia (diaper? nappy?) because despite having lived in the US for years, I hadn't had to use those words since...more

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Jun 14, 2008 Emily rated it 4 of 5 stars

I read this several years ago, so I have no idea what it was about. But I do know that I have LOVED every Bill Bryson book that I have ever even seen, let alone read.

I think Bill Bryson is very cool. I'd like him to be my neighbor. He could write stories about me. Like "I have this neighbor who stands in her garden and chats with her plants. She introduces the new ones when they arrive. She asks everybody how they are doing and if they are thirsty. Boy, she sure is a great lady." Ok, I don't re...more

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Jan 17, 2008 Valerie rated it 2 of 5 stars

Recommended to Valerie by: Kelly

Shelves: 2006-2008-singapore, humor

As an expat about to return to the US, this book simply wasn't Weird enough for me. It in no way captures my experience of how completely absurd the US feels upon returning after an extended absence.

Obsessions with skinny white girls named Jessica; the unbelievable noise, especially from radio and TV; un-ending ads for stuff on sale (which exist in other places, but when it's in another language, I just tune it out); the fact that no one walks anywhere; the enormous bodies(quitting smoking mayb...more

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Feb 08, 2011 Arni Vidar Bjorgvinsson rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio

Bill Bryson moves back to America after living in England for 20 years, and writes a weekly column for the two first years wherein he described every day things and events in his life. Later he turned these columns into a book, and called it "I'm a Stranger Here Myself"

I would recommend this book to anyone, but especially to those that have (like me) traveled to America and found it amazing and wonderful and strange and awful, all at the same time. Also, if you possibly can, do try to find the A...more

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Jan 15, 2010 Janel rated it 5 of 5 stars

Today I had a doctor's appointment and that is when I remembered I am also reading this book. It is a series of humorous columns written by the author detailing his experience returning to the US. It makes for quick reading and is good when I am somewhere busy like a waiting room or airport.

Well, it took several doctor's appointments and a hospital stay but I finally finished the book. The time it took me to read is no reflection on the quality of the book. Bryson is an outstanding writer. I can...more

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May 07, 2013 Claire rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book advertises itself to be “notes on returning to America after twenty years away.” I am a Bill Bryson fan, and have read quite a lot of his books. I know that he is an American who moved to England not long after he graduated from university, fell in love with an English woman and settled there, had a family, and stayed for a while. I find his views on my own country well-observed, unique and highly amusing. As a Brit living in the US, I have a few views of my own about the differences b...more This book advertises itself to be “notes on returning to America after twenty years away.” I am a Bill Bryson fan, and have read quite a lot of his books. I know that he is an American who moved to England not long after he graduated from university, fell in love with an English woman and settled there, had a family, and stayed for a while. I find his views on my own country well-observed, unique and highly amusing. As a Brit living in the US, I have a few views of my own about the differences between our two countries, so I was looking forward to reading what he had to say.

It turns out that the chapters of this book were originally used as regular columns in some publication or other in the UK. I will agree that some of them are as advertised, and notes on returning to America after time away, but may of them are humorous comments on modern life in general, or in fact Bryson's life in general. If you like Bill Bryson, then you will like his stories, but do not expect a book full of anecdotes about America from the perspective of someone who has just arrived. It is probably about 35% that.

I read this for the Sin City Bookers book group, in 2013, and the book was written in 1999. There are references to the millenium bug and fax machines quite a lot of grumbling about the computer that makes it a little dated. There are some issues that he discusses that I did enjoy, even on arriving from the UK in 2011 I can say that I was also baffled by the sheer amount of junk food, personal taxes, the “war on drugs,” the excessive number of cup holders American cars have, why no-one in this country walks anywhere, Thanksgiving, how very bloody cold the North East can get, the advertising of lawyers and pharmaceuticals, diners and shopping. To name but a few.

Whilst this is not my favourite Bryson book, it's a funny one. It is not as good as the travel ones or the researched factual ones because you do not learn so much, and you do get the feeling that he is recycling his material a little in this one. There were still a few points that I had tears of laughter on my face, and many points that I had to read aloud to my husband.

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Apr 27, 2013 Yvann S rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

"People have become so habituated to using the car for everything that it would never occur to them to unfurl their legs and see what they can do."

Having read and loved Notes from a Small Island and Down Under, I dutifully collected all of Bryson's books... this one is a collection of columns he wrote for a British newspaper after returning to the USA with his family, having left it as a young man.

Bryson pokes fun at nearly every aspect of life in the US - wranglings with immigration, the fact t...more

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Feb 19, 2013 Karen Hansen rated it 3 of 5 stars

After spending two decades living in England, author Bill Bryson moved his family (including English born wife and kids) back to the country of his birth, the United States. A British publication contacted Bryson about writing a newspaper column regarding his thoughts on returning to America and on the differences between American and British living. Bryson's book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, is a compilation of those articles.

This particular book has sat on my TBR shelf for years, way before I...more After spending two decades living in England, author Bill Bryson moved his family (including English born wife and kids) back to the country of his birth, the United States. A British publication contacted Bryson about writing a newspaper column regarding his thoughts on returning to America and on the differences between American and British living. Bryson's book, I'm a Stranger Here Myself, is a compilation of those articles.

This particular book has sat on my TBR shelf for years, way before I ever met Dan. It was gathering dust for so long, that I didn't remember exactly what it was about, until a few days ago, when I plucked it off of the shelf and reread the back cover. I then got excited and immediately started to read it, as I thought that it might be helpful with explaining some of the cultural differences that Dan and I encounter and a timely read before my March trip to England.

Nope. Not really.

I felt like only about half of the chapters were even relevant to the theme. A lot seemed to be about modern life (computers, transportation, globalization) rather than the differences between the United States and the United Kingdom. I think this is natural, as Bryson often reflected on his childhood in America, but he didn't bring about a unique or interesting perspective to the subjects.

As with most collections, some chapters were more interesting than others. I found myself skimming through about a third of the book. It's a quick read, although I wish it had been more entertaining and engaging.

This is not to say that I didn't find bits funny. One thing that I have learned through dating Dan, is that the sense of humor between Americans and Brits is very different. Obviously it's different, but what I mean is It's different in a way that you just don't pick up on from watching movies and reading books, it's much more apparent when you are surrounded by it all of the time. Bryson's years in England have definitely made his sense of humor less American and it comes across strong in his writing. I don't know that I would have picked up on this if not for having Dan in my life.

As a fan of Bryson, I am sad to report that this is not one of his best efforts.

Please visit my blog for more reviews and thoughts on dating a Brit!(less)

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Jul 08, 2012 Emily rated it 3 of 5 stars

I found this being used to prop up the mosquito coil in our house in Woleai, and thought, "What serendipity! I'm living abroad, and would love to read another's cultural insights on the U.S." Wrong. Well, I *would* love to read about American culture, but that's not what these essays were about. Maybe only three of them address this in a meaningful way. The rest are composed of zany factoids, like statistics on all the different ways Americans injure themselves in their houses. I would give it o...more

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Jun 09, 2012 Eva rated it 3 of 5 stars

Started out very charming, but started to get old. Some kindle highlights:

It is disconcerting to find yourself so simultaneously in your element and out of it. I can enumerate all manner of minutiae that mark me out as an American—which of the fifty states has a unicameral legislature, what a squeeze play is in baseball, who played Captain Kangaroo on TV. I even know about two-thirds of the words to “The Star-Spangled Banner,” which is more than some people know who have sung it publicly. But se...more

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Jun 06, 2012 Mighty_k24 rated it 4 of 5 stars

In't kort: na 20 jaar in Groot-Brittanië keert Bryson terug naar de Verenigde Staten. Oorspronkelijk een rasechte Midwester (hij is opgegroeid in Iowa) nestelt hij zich nu, samen met zijn familie, in het oosten van de USA, in Maine. Dit boek is een verzameling columns die gedurende drie jaar schreef over hoe de USA is veranderd in die 20 jaar, wat hij heeft gemist en wat juist niet, wat beter was in Groot-Brittanië en wat juist niet.

Mijn oordeel: dit is Bryson ten voeten uit. Je voelt aan elk wo...more

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Jun 03, 2012 Elizabeth rated it 3 of 5 stars

"I'm a Stranger Here Myself" is a collection of short articles Bill Bryson wrote for a newspaper about returning to America after over 20 years abroad in the UK. Most of these short articles are on fairly mundane topics - the strangeness of large attics in American homes, Bryson's fascination with motels and road trips, and the oddness of those fancy, confusing descriptions of specials waiters often give at restaurants. Bryson also critiques American culture (this book was written in the late 19...more

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Mar 05, 2012 Bryan rated it 2 of 5 stars

This one isn't for everyone, meaning this book isn't really for me. But I really thought it would be for me, because I've enjoyed Dave Barry as much as the next guy, and everyone seems to compare Barry and Bryson. Plus, this book was specifically recommended to me by a trusted recommender.

Also, having spent my years in England, I thought an extended comparison between the countries would be a refreshing revisit. But the book wasn't really what I'd hoped it would be. Maybe my expectations were t...more This one isn't for everyone, meaning this book isn't really for me. But I really thought it would be for me, because I've enjoyed Dave Barry as much as the next guy, and everyone seems to compare Barry and Bryson. Plus, this book was specifically recommended to me by a trusted recommender.

Also, having spent my years in England, I thought an extended comparison between the countries would be a refreshing revisit. But the book wasn't really what I'd hoped it would be. Maybe my expectations were too high.

Bryson pulled together this book by smashing together years worth of weekly newspaper submissions from his job as a columnist. Right there we see a problem: this book was not written to be read as a book, and therefore if you read it like a book instead of a weekly newspaper column you may be disappointed, as I was. I kept thinking "This is where David Lebovitz gets his style" after every chapter.

So really this boils down to a work of some publisher who wanted to make a few more bucks selling books made up by taking material Bryson had already produced. I wonder if the publisher even asked Bryson. I feel comfort in knowing that I didn't buy it from this publisher but got it from the public library twelve years after it appeared in bookstores.

Like Lebovitz, Bryson is self-depreciating. He also enjoys hyperbole, and other forms of exaggeration, and I often can't decipher whether--at any point in time--he is being funny or stating some remarkable or interesting fact. For example, is he really that confused by his own tax returns? Tax returns aren't that bad, just read and follow the instructions, or shell out a couple hundred bucks (I know he's good for it) and get a professional at H&R Block to take care of it.

And no, Bryson, that's not how Thanksgiving ended up being on the 4th Thursday of November. Or maybe you were just trying to be ridiculous? Either way, I certainly won't be reading "A Short History of Nearly Everything" because I won't know when you are telling history or being funny.

He loves parenthetical statements (as do I) and uses them mostly for comical interjections (ha ha ha), and always finishes his columns/chapters with an attempt to funnily bring up something he wrote earlier in the column. But if I've forgotten what was written after only 500 words, don't you think it wasn't that great the first time around? Again, Lebovitz loves this strategy, and I can't stand it. I suppose it would be more palatable if I only read something like this once per week.

And in the midst of it all, Bryson suddenly will strike a harmonious and clever note, something pleasant and refreshing and interesting. Much like listening to Dave Matthews. Or Yanni. The good parts are enough satisfaction--just barely--to keep you reading.

Plus, Bryson is a professional writer, so he knows what he is doing. Reading his work is easy, unlike reading my critique of his work. So, in the spirit of weekly funny columnists like Bryson, I'll finish this review by saying "I guess it's time for me to finally get to those tax returns, but because I'm too clumsy to read the instructions--or too lazy--I'll just go to H&R Block. Maybe they'll have them done in time for Thanksgiving (ha ha ha)."(less)

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Sep 14, 2011 Rachel rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: funny, travel, non-fiction

OK, I read this book on a plane back to Poland after a 3 1/2 week visit back to my hometown in the United States. So I was probably a perfect audience for this particular brand of humor...that is, the hilarity you can find in your own culture if you look at it with the fresh eyes of someone who is now accustomed to a very different life. Some of the laughter comes from anger. It really can set your teeth on edge to see your home country going down a path that you feel is destructive when the sol...more

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Aug 31, 2011 Andrew Breslin rated it 4 of 5 stars

Bill Bryson is always a delight, and this one proved even more delightful than most. Those familiar with his breezy, pithy style will find this brimming with all the breeze and pith they have come to expect. He has an uncanny knack for pointing out the absurdities that surround us, to make people stop and think, if only for a moment, and make them laugh at the same time, ameliorating the painful sting that normally accompanies any arduous thinking. What makes it even better is that the essays in...more

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Jul 28, 2011 Michael rated it 4 of 5 stars

Whereas this is a fun series of essays with a number of interesting cultural and societal observations, what’s missing - in my mind - is the compilation or consilience of a number of issues within one broad topic. I’ve so far read Bryson’s books on Home and Nearly Everything and what’s striking about those offerings is his non-scholarly take on multifarious histories, anecdotes, systems, etc. that more or less ties all of the content together into comprehensive wholes. Here the author is compili...more

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Jul 04, 2011 Alkatraz rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction

A wonderfully poignant collection of Bryson's published news paper article. After twenty years in England, where he married and had his children, Bryson returns to America to an interesting version of culture shock. We follow him over a few years worth of articles as he reeducates himself with the strange ways of Americana. Everything from a day at the beach to children leaving the nest, Bryson shows us his world, both intimate and familiar.

His style is humorous and quirky, a lovely mix. You ca...more

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May 01, 2011 Barbara Bryant rated it 2 of 5 stars

I feel a little mean as I give this two stars, but I like Bill Bryson a lot and just can't rate this at the same level as some of his others.

It's a perfectly fun book of columns Bryson wrote for two years for a British newspaper magazine supplement, after returning to America from Britain with his British wife and their children. He settled in New Hampshire, and began to write (for a British audience, remember) of the rediscovery of his homeland, many years after he had left it.

We read of his aw...more I feel a little mean as I give this two stars, but I like Bill Bryson a lot and just can't rate this at the same level as some of his others.

It's a perfectly fun book of columns Bryson wrote for two years for a British newspaper magazine supplement, after returning to America from Britain with his British wife and their children. He settled in New Hampshire, and began to write (for a British audience, remember) of the rediscovery of his homeland, many years after he had left it.

We read of his awe and dismay as he discovers the modern American conveniences that have been completely unknown to him in Britain, even as his wife and children cheerfully embrace them. We enjoy with him the pleasures of life in a lovely New England college town, where tradition, friendliness, unlocked doors and town parades fill him with patriotic euphoria, and laugh also at some of the foibles of the people and places he visits while pursuing his work. (I realized often that I was mostly glad I lived here as he described what I saw as some of the privations of his English life.)

My favorite segments, which I would rate higher if I could, are his musings on his own ineptitude in handling Life, with his inability to be suave, travel-savvy and technologically adept. Here is where I laughed out loud a lot, and kept smiling into the next story. When he flirts lightly with an attractive woman on an airplane, only to discover when he goes to the plane's bathroom that he has covered his face with ball point pen markings, I remember a few times I have done something similar and realize I could not describe it so entertainingly.

Part of the problem with a book like this is that it wasn't meant to be read as a book, but rather as a weekly offering that could be thoroughly digested before moving on. The columns are short and it is easy to read quite a few in a row without really wanting to jump around in subjects as you then find yourself doing.

I actually enjoyed the book a lot, but sometimes the cuteness wore me down a bit, and I don't think it is one of his best titles. It's something I might pick up again to find my favorite episodes but it is not a purchase for me. I will happily choose another Bryson, though, anytime.(less)

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Mar 13, 2011 Anne Keefe added it

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
By: Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in America and then went to Europe. While over there, he got married and started a family and then decided to move back to his home country. His 288 page book pokes fun at everything American. Everything.

Post Office Appreciation Day: A day where they serve their customers bagels and coffee as a thank you for your business. The other 364 days out of the year, the mail is slow and can...more

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Jan 05, 2011 Kerstin Olcott rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: reviewed

I started out totally in love with this book. The first quarter of it made me laugh out loud literally. I enjoyed Bill Bryson's droll humor and observations on American life. It cracked me up that he writes about the joy of having a garbage disposal and the annoying questions on the immigration paperwork. The chapter on all of the bizarre accidents Americans get into including 142,000 visitors to the ER as a result of "clothing injuries" was hysterical. I liked his quips about the war on drugs a...more

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Jun 27, 2010 Clara rated it 1 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010, dc-public-library, read-it-in-dc

I'm a Stranger Here Myself (published as Notes from a Big Country in the UK) is the only thing I've read by Bryson, yet I'm confident declaring that absolutely anything else he has written is probably better. I typically don't finish the books I would give one star, but this is fast reading and all I had at poolside one day. While I found this text borderline reprehensible, I suspect Bryson's work in general might even be good; but this isn't. Here are some of my problems: half the essays read l...more

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Jun 23, 2010 Daniel Stafford rated it 4 of 5 stars

Apparently, this is taken from a column Bill was writing when he returned from England (where he was living for 20 years of his adult life) back to his home country of America.

For the most part the book's chapters (each about 3 and a half pages) muse on about the culture shock of how much things have changed since his youth, and how different things are in comparison to the way of the Britons. Of course, this is done with great humorous jest and observation (and frustration).

Byson's actual humor...more

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Mar 10, 2010 Sarah rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: 2010

I always really want to love Bill Bryson, but never can quite get there, he's like the best friend you want to fall in love with, but just doesn't have the magic. Usually I get about halfway or even (on a good day) three-quarters of the way through his books and I start to find him annoying or repetitive. This, I had less issue with...as it's a collection of his newspaper columns, so they're short vignettes, and difficult to get tired halfway through. Also, I read this one sporadically over seve...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Kristopher rated it 2 of 5 stars

I like Bill Bryson. Let me just start it that way.

This one, though, was kind of boring. It started strong. I'd say the first 40 pages were great. I laughed out loud and all that. But, then it degenerated into some really formulaic, well-worn territory. Observations about complicated computer instructions, how his wife forced him onto some exaggerated diet, excessive paperwork can be excessive, etc. Even the overly familiar stuff had decent moments, but what stood out were all the hackneyed jokes...more

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Mar 02, 2009 emily rated it 2 of 5 stars

Contains such fascinating tidbits as:
VCRs: Needlessly complicated!
Americans: Friendlier, fatter than Brits!
Kids these days: not what they used to be!

And yet I chuckled on nearly every page. So sue me.

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About Bill Bryson

Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and worked in journalism until he became a full time writer. He lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to New Hampshire in America for a few years, but they have now returned to live in the UK.
In The Lost Continent, Bill Bryson's hilarious first t...more

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Books by Bill Bryson

A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail

At Home: A Short History of Private Life

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“Of all the things I am not very good at, living in the real world is perhaps the most outstanding.” — 137 people liked it

“Take a moment from time to time to remember that you are alive. I know this sounds a trifle obvious, but it is amazing how little time we take to remark upon this singular and gratifying fact. By the most astounding stroke of luck an infinitesimal portion of all the matter in the universe came together to create you and for the tiniest moment in the great span of eternity you have the incomparable privilege to exist.” — 28 people liked it

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title link	preview: I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away
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BBCode	[url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25.I_m_a_Stranger_Here_Myself?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book][img]http://d.gr-assets.com/books/1333579260l/25.jpg[/img][/url] [url=http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/25.I_m_a_Stranger_Here_Myself?utm_medium=api&utm_source=blog_book]I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away by Bill Bryson[/url]

I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away

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