Goodreads | Lost Continent (Radio Collection) by Bill Bryson

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Leftbanker rated it:

(review of isbn 0060920084)

09/29/07

bookshelves: travel

The Lost Continental: A Look at Bill Bryson

I should preface this essay by saying that if everyone didn’t like this Bill Bryson book as much as I didn’t, he would be about the wealthiest author on the planet. At least I bought it. I have several of his books and have read all of them. Bill Bryson can be assured that with detractors like me, he doesn’t need fans.

A dyspeptic man in his middle thirties, whose constant bad mood seems more like someone in their mid seventies, driv...more The Lost Continental: A Look at Bill Bryson

I should preface this essay by saying that if everyone didn’t like this Bill Bryson book as much as I didn’t, he would be about the wealthiest author on the planet. At least I bought it. I have several of his books and have read all of them. Bill Bryson can be assured that with detractors like me, he doesn’t need fans.

A dyspeptic man in his middle thirties, whose constant bad mood seems more like someone in their mid seventies, drives around the U.S. and complains about absolutely everything he sees, smells, hears, and eats. If this sounds like your idea of a good time, read Bill Bryson’s The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America (Abacus, 1990).

He constantly mocks small towns in America by referring to them by such names as Dog Water, Dunceville, Urinal, Spigot, and Hooterville—and this is in the first five pages. Don’t worry about him running out of clever names for hick towns; Bryson has a million of them and he uses every single one.

The only things about which Bryon has a favorable view are natural wonders and the homes of rich people. He marvels at the obscenely-posh residences of ultra-wealthy, early 20th century industrialists on Mackinac Island which were built before income taxes and most labor laws. He would probably be thrilled with pre-revolutionary France or Czarist Russia. One of his very few favorable reviews of American cities was of the ski town of Stowe, Vermont which caters almost exclusively to the rich.

When he is traveling through the southwest he complains about the Mexican music on the radio. He seems more content to resort to chauvinism than to come to some sort of understanding about the culture he is visiting. In my opinion, it’s always more interesting to praise something that you understand than to mock something that you don’t. I would have taken the time to translate a few of the songs and tell readers what they are about. In fact, I have done this and Mexican ranchera music is all about stories of love, heartbreak, and often violence which describe the cowboy culture of Mexico’s northern territories. Bryson implies that the people who listen to this music are just too stupid to realize that it is only one tune played over and over.

He gripes about a weatherman on TV who seems rather gleeful at the prospect of a coming snow storm yet Bryson seems to relish in the idea of not liking anything that he experiences in his journey. His entire trip is like a storm he passes through. Just once I wanted him to roll into some town that he liked and get into an interesting conversation with one of its residents.

Here are examples of the cheeriness with which Bryson opens a few of his chapters:

“I drove on and on across South Dakota. God, what a flat and empty state.”

“What is the difference between Nevada and a toilet? You can flush a toilet.” (One reviewer called Bryson "witty.")

“I was headed for Nebraska. Now there’s a sentence you don’t want to have to say too often if you can possibly help it.”

“In 1958, my grandmother got cancer of the colon and came to our house to die.” This last event must have brought untold joy to the young writer.

Tell us more, Bill. His narrative is more tiresome than any Kansas wheat field he may have passed on his road trip through hell. Most Americans seem to be either fat, or stupid, or both in the eyes of Bryson. I can only assume that Bryson himself is some sort or genius body builder. Just one time I wanted him to talk to a local resident over a beer or a cup of coffee. I wanted him to describe his partner in conversation as other than fat or stupid. Not even one time do we hear about a place from somebody who lives there. We could just as easily have read the guidebooks as Bryson did and he could have stayed home and saved himself thousands of miles of misery....less

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Michael rated it:

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01/05/08

Read in January, 2008

While in the Frankfurt airport killing time, I decided I needed something to read while waiting in the airport and on the long flight back. During my vacation, I had already read Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Freedom, Judith Butler's Excitable Speech, and Yves Simon's Freedom and Community, as well as most of two issues of CCC and an issue of Hypatia. I was a bit tired of academic voices and theory (though I had enjoyed everything I read, except perhaps Simon, who...more While in the Frankfurt airport killing time, I decided I needed something to read while waiting in the airport and on the long flight back. During my vacation, I had already read Paulo Freire's Pedagogy of Freedom, Judith Butler's Excitable Speech, and Yves Simon's Freedom and Community, as well as most of two issues of CCC and an issue of Hypatia. I was a bit tired of academic voices and theory (though I had enjoyed everything I read, except perhaps Simon, whose Thomistic perspective irked me and whose writing seemed dry), so I went to the bookstore and perused. The English section was limited, so I was left trying to decide between a collection of short stories by Margaret Atwood and The Lost Continent by Bill Bryson.

Bryson, a native Iowan who had moved to Britain, had been haunting me for years. If someone was knowledgeable of travel writing, they asked me about him. I have some acquaintances who have been shocked that I hadn't read any of him. I was holding Atwood's book and Bryson's book, weighing the pros and cons of each. So I read Bryson first paragraph:
<blockquote>I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to. When you come from Des Moines you either accept the fact without question and settle down with a local girl named Bobbie and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever, or you spend your adolescence moaning at length about what a dump it is and how you can't wait to get out, and then you settle down with a local girl named Bobbi and get a job at the Firestone factory and live there forever and ever.</blockquote>
and decided I had to read this. Iowa-deprecating humour? I was excited. Maybe this book would be worth the astronomical 14 Euros (which, with the exchange rate, is about 1 million dollars).

I admit I was chuckling a lot during his first few pages, and even occasionally throughout the rest of his book. However, it wasn't before too long that his book just began to annoy me. Every attempt at humor in his book, besides some self-deprecation or making fun of his family, is targeted shots at those who are different from him. Bryson's book seems like a good example of how to enact the construction of "normal." Overweight? Here's a few jokes thrown at you. An accent that isn't accepted as standard? He'll mock you incessantly. Differently abled and in the same room as Bryson? You're there for one purpose alone: to stare at because you're a freak.

I haven't quite finished the book, and I probably will (I only have about 50 pages left), but I have to say I'm greatly disappointed. The sour icing smothered the cake when he announced that, feeling incredibly visible and alone in a nearly all black Southern town, that he now knew what it was like to be black in South Dakota.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Bryson, but you have no idea what it's like to be black anywhere. If anything, Bryson's book is a chronicling of his extreme naiveté at his own unearned privilege.

It seems like the only group not worth mocking in his book are queer folk, and that's probably because they are so invisible to him that they're not even on the radar to mock. Jokes about other people can be amazingly funny, but a book constructed completely on mocking others, a book that seems to function mostly as a reinforcement of normalcy, fails to continue to be funny. It's just tiring.

I should have picked up Atwood's book instead....less

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Ciara rated it:

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03/13/08

bookshelves: don-t-read-these-

Read in February, 2008

recommended to Ciara by: Salvation Army
recommends it for: Hateful, bigoted, fat white men and racists

This is the worst book ever. Bryson is a fat, cynical white guy traveling around the country, proclaiming in the subtitle: "Travels in Small Town America." But like most fat white guys, Bryson is scared of small town America. He hates every small town he comes to- whether they're on Indian reservations, small farming communities in Nebraska, southern towns full of African Americans where the author is too scared to even stop the car, or small mining communities in West Virginia, also w...more This is the worst book ever. Bryson is a fat, cynical white guy traveling around the country, proclaiming in the subtitle: "Travels in Small Town America." But like most fat white guys, Bryson is scared of small town America. He hates every small town he comes to- whether they're on Indian reservations, small farming communities in Nebraska, southern towns full of African Americans where the author is too scared to even stop the car, or small mining communities in West Virginia, also where the author is too scared to stop. How can you write a book about small town America when you're too scared to stop in any small towns??? His favorite towns? Pittsburg and Charlotte. (Definitely "small" in my world.)

Driving through the north woods, crossing the border from Maine to New Hampshire: "The skies were still flat and low, the weather cold, but at least I was out of the montony of the Maine woods."

In Littleton, on the Vermont border: "People on the sidewalk smiled at me as I passed. This was beginning to worry me. Nobody, even in America, is that friendly. What did they want from me?"

At a cemetery in Vermont: "I stood there in the mile October sunshine, feeling so sorry for all these lukles speople and their lost lives, reflecting bleakly on mortality and my own dear, cherished family so far away in England, and I thought, 'Well, fuck this,' and walked back down the hill to the car."

At least he freely refers to himself as a "flinty-hearted jerk-off."

Maybe Mr. Bryson should get off his lazy ass, stop whining about England, and actually stop the car once in a while. This book spouts so much hateful white guy racism that I can't even bring myself to give it away. While I am 100% against burning or destroying any kind of book, I simply cannot let this one leave my hands. It will probably just find someone who agrees with it's horrible twisted and pessimistic point of view! I haven't decided if I'm going to just bury it in my storage space (which may mean when I leave my apartment someone else might pick it up), or "accidentally" drop it in a snowbank outside. At least in spring the pages would all be glued together, and no one would be able to read it ever again.

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Wendi rated it:

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09/20/08

bookshelves: biography-memoir, travel

Read in September, 2008

The quote on the cover of this book is by New York magazine and says, "The kind of book Steinbeck might have written if he'd traveled with David Letterman instead of Charlie the Poodle."

Thus proving my theory that any and every situation can be improved by the presence of a dog.

As others have mentioned, Bryson tends to be fairly degrading towards minorities in this book, depending on the situation. HOWEVER, throughout this book, Bryson is degrading towards everything....more

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Rachel added it (review of isbn 0060920084)

06/26/08

Read in June, 2008

Perennial (an imprint of HarperCollins) would like to convince you that Bill Bryson "serves up a colorful tale of boredom... that takes us straight into the heart and soul of America" and that he does so with "razor wit and a kind heart."

Falsely post-racist "humour", and the sarcastic inner monologue of an unhappy, isolated man don't serve up a "touching", "truthful", "observant", "intelligent", "witty", "ge...more

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Karen rated it:

(review of isbn 0060920084)

09/07/08

bookshelves: humor, travel

Read in September, 2008

When reading this book, American readers may very well feel like they are eavesdropping on a conversation not intended for their ears. This is because Bill Bryson obviously intended this book to be read by a British audience.

There are lots of laughs in this book. His depictions of Iowa made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes. For example, his explanation for why so many farmers are missing fingers:

"Yet, there is scarcely a farmer in the Midwest over the age of twenty who has...more When reading this book, American readers may very well feel like they are eavesdropping on a conversation not intended for their ears. This is because Bill Bryson obviously intended this book to be read by a British audience.

There are lots of laughs in this book. His depictions of Iowa made me laugh until I had tears in my eyes. For example, his explanation for why so many farmers are missing fingers:

"Yet, there is scarcely a farmer in the Midwest over the age of twenty who has not at some time or other had a limb or digit yanked off and thrown into the next field by some noisy farmyard implement. To tell you the absolute truth, I think farmers do it on purpose. I think working day after day beside these massive threshers and balers with their grinding gears and flapping fan belts and complex mechanisms they get a little hypnotized by all the noise and motion. They stand there staring at the whirring machinery and they think, 'I wonder what would happen if I just stuck my finger in there a little bit.' I know that sounds crazy. But you have to realize that farmers don't have whole lot of sense in these matters because they feel no pain. It's true. Every day in the Des Moines Register you can find a story about a farmer who has inadvertently torn off an arm and then calmly walked six miles into the nearest town to have it sewn back on. The stories always say, 'Jones, clutching his severed limb, told his physician, 'I seem to have cut my durn arm off, Doc.' It's never: 'Jones, spurting blood, jumped around hysterically for twenty minutes, fell into a swoon and then tried to run in four directions at once,' which is how it would be with you or me."

This stuff cracks me up. Maybe it's because I grew up in Iowa too.

From an American's point of view, I was at times amazed by the important landmarks Bryson missed seeing or failed to appreciate. He drove by Monticello, for heaven's sake! In Springfield, Illinois, he "drove around a little bit, but finding nothing worth stopping for" he left -- Springfield, Illinois -- the home of Abraham Lincoln and his burial place! He passed up touring the Biltmore Estate in Asheville, North Carolina, because it cost too much! He called Gettysburg a flat field -- a battlefield of such varied topography as to make one wonder whether Bryson actually visited it! He missed Lake Tahoe! He also missed seeing Acadia National Park near Bar Harbor, Maine. Nor did he have any lobster along the Maine coast. Yet he felt informed enough to conclude that there was nothing special about Maine. Hurrumph!

These failings may be forgiven though, because he has lived away from the United States for a long time. And, to be fair, he traveled far and wide and saw many wonderful places. From his well-written depictions, I've regained a desire to see places in the United States I haven't visited yet, including Savannah, Georgia; Charleston, South Carolina; and Mackinaw Island, Michigan.

Overall, I enjoyed the book and enjoyed many laughs in reading it, which is why I like reading Bryson's books so much. But he seemed to tire out toward the end of the book and toward the end of his travels. His outlook became more and more jaundiced -- which is not good, when his outlook is generally jaundiced to begin with. Part I is the best part of the book, which focuses on the Midwest and East Coast. Part II, about Bryson's travels in the West, seems tacked on and unnecessary for the book (except for his description of his drive through the Colorado mountains to Cripple Creek and his depiction of his first view of the Grand Canyon ("The fog parted. It just silently drew back, like a set of theater curtains being opened, and suddenly we saw that we were on the edge of a sheer, giddying drop of at least a thousand feet. 'Jesus!' we said and jumped back, and all along the canyon edge you could hear people saying, 'Jesus!' like a message being passed down a long line. And then for many moments all was silence, except for the tiny fretful shiftings of the snow, because out there in front of us was the most awesome, most silencing sight that exists on earth.")).

*There is some swearing in the book....less

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Meghan rated it:

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09/25/07

Read in August, 2007

In a lot of ways, this is like most of Bryson’s other books. It’s a travel narrative in which he mocks just about every thing and every one he comes across, complete with Bryson’s characteristic zingers that elicit inappropriately loud chuckles—even if you are on a cramped airplane next to a man who says with his glare that he finds your laughing both creepy and disdainful. I speak from experience, it’s best to read Bryson alone, or at least somewhere where it’s appropriate to laug...more In a lot of ways, this is like most of Bryson’s other books. It’s a travel narrative in which he mocks just about every thing and every one he comes across, complete with Bryson’s characteristic zingers that elicit inappropriately loud chuckles—even if you are on a cramped airplane next to a man who says with his glare that he finds your laughing both creepy and disdainful. I speak from experience, it’s best to read Bryson alone, or at least somewhere where it’s appropriate to laugh. But there is also something different, inferior about this one. In most of Bryson’s other books, he picks on everyone he comes across, but his writing feels jovial and charming, not mean spirited. And he’s even willing to turn that wit around on himself—which is an easy task as he’s a portly and eccentric man. But all that’s missing from this book—he comes off as condescending and cruel, like a man who moved to England and returned to the US not to celebrate it but to prove how superior he has become. He especially loves to pick on women he runs across in small towns, who in Bryson’s eyes are always heavy, grumpy, and dragging half a dozen rude kids. As one who has just driven across the country, I appreciated how Bryson was able to so aptly capture some parts of the country (i.e. the sheer boredom of driving across Ohio, the pain of having to listen to Christian radio), but at times his writing also felt very artificial. Often he relies on stereotypes—the dopey diner waitress, the twangy southern woman. I’m pretty familiar with these stereotypes, why not use your 200 pages to tell me something about small town America that I don’t know? This is one of Bryson’s earlier books, and luckily he learns how to control his sarcasm, because his later books are real gems. If you’re going to read Bryson, I wouldn’t start with this one. The only thing worse than going on a disappointing road trip is reading about a guy going on a disappointing road trip. Towards the end of the book Bryson redeems himself: his humor becomes less cruel and more charming and he actually seems to enjoy himself and find a little Midwest pride. But it was too little too late for me to really love the book.

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Betsy rated it:

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10/14/07

Read in October, 2007

recommends it for: the older generation

Bill Bryson's works are not great literature but are usually informative and enjoyable. After living in England for 20 years, Bryson returned to his home town of Des Moines, Iowa, and from there journeyed around the country looking for the perfect small town. I was pleased to learn that one of the town's closest to his image was my hometown, Idaho Falls, Idaho. I was not pleased to learn that the nearby National Reactor Testing Station had discovered that plutonium was leaking from some of its w...more

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Michael B rated it:

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10/03/07

bookshelves: humor

Read in October, 2007

The Lost Continent seems very much like an “after the return” sequel to his Notes from a small island, particularly in the way Bryson travels through rural towns of unremarkable podunkery in an effort to better understand and come to grips with society and culture and his place in it. Some of the observations are (true to Bryson form) quite hilarious while others come across as exploitative and unnecessary “filler” material. While I understand most of this is extremely ir...more

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Gail rated it:

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08/07/07

Read in August, 2007

As much as I am enjoying Bryson's books, this one was not as humorous (to me) as Walk in the Woods (I've got more of his travelogues to plow through, so that's something to keep in mind this early in the game). I felt as though, with this early book of his, some passages were rushed just so Bryson could say he'd he'd traversed the entire U.S. in just 300 pages. And as funny as it is to hear Bryson rip this country's rednecks and retards a new one, it got a little repetitive in this book. My favo...more

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Erin rated it:

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08/14/07

Read in August, 2007

recommends it for: cynical people who ride the metro

This was a good metro book, but it didn't live up to my expectations. This is the first Bill Bryson I've ever read, and I love travelogues, so I assumed I would love his writing. But, really, he's kind of an ass, and sometimes he's just mean . . . and not in a good way. It got better as it went along, but there were a lot of points when I just wanted to say, "well if Britain is so great, why don't you move back there and just shut up!?"

I've heard that this isn't one of Bryson's bes...more

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Erinn rated it:

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10/08/08

Has a copy to sell/swap — Read in September, 2008

recommends it for: Anyone who enjoyed many family road trips as a child.

The best parts about this book are the moments when I felt as if I could hear my own voice as a child stuck in the back seat of a red Chevette as my dad drove us all over tarnation. Bryson's accounts of childhood roadtrips are hilariously intertwined with his journey down memory lane on a cross country trek of disappoinment and glee. The sad undertones to some of his accounts really hit home to a near 30-year-old who realizes places and events of childhood just aren't quite as big, quite as pret...more

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Tommy rated it:

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12/06/07

bookshelves: tossed_out_on_the_lawn

Read in November, 2007

recommends it for: snobs

Well, ain't it somethin for dat rascally Mr. Bryson wit all o dat funny Northern talk to make his way down here to Dixie and spend some time wid us! We sure do 'ppreciate you takin us into your rich and well-knowed book, Mr. Bryson. And yer gosh-darn-right, God save all those poor folk who done shopped at K-Mart! They should've spent their nickels at Crate & Barrel had they knowed what to do wid demselves.....

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'stina rated it:

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11/18/08

Read in July, 2008

How many of ya'll had milk delivered to your house when you were young? We did. I think the milkman left two gallons a week, though I can't remember if it was once a week or twice a week. I remember there was a Bordon truck that left it very very early in the morning. I guess our family was big enough that we went through quite a bit. I don't remember when it stopped, but I guess it became more cost effective for Borden just to sell it's milk at the grocery store. I did a google search and the o...more How many of ya'll had milk delivered to your house when you were young? We did. I think the milkman left two gallons a week, though I can't remember if it was once a week or twice a week. I remember there was a Bordon truck that left it very very early in the morning. I guess our family was big enough that we went through quite a bit. I don't remember when it stopped, but I guess it became more cost effective for Borden just to sell it's milk at the grocery store. I did a google search and the only company that continues to deliver milk in this area just shut down for the summer, due to gas prices.

I was reminded of home milk delivery while reading The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America by Bill Byrson. I picked this book up because I loved A Walk in the Woods and In A Sunburnt Country, travelogues about hiking the Appalachian trail and traveling Australia, respecively. Also, it was in a buy-one-get-one-free pile a few years ago at Bookstop. It is part of my continuing efforts to get through my unread book pile. It's an account of a road trip that started in the midwest, turned southward, then all up the eastern seaboard, then up and over across to Wisconsin and then back down again. I'm at the part where he's started off through Kansas and is now in Colorado. Presumably, he'll hit the west coast before the book is done. He sort of has a mission to find the perfect small town, though he loses that focus occassionally.

Anyhow, it's an odd sort of read for me. It was published in 1990, and it seems, based on comments he made about Black October, that Bryson did his road trip across the country in 1987. Bryson is somewhat unique as a travel writer in that he was born and grew up in Des Moines, Iowa and got the hell out as soon as he could. By that, I mean he moved to the UK in the early 70s and stayed until the mid-90s. Last I heard, he was back in the UK. Anyhow, that means his perspective is interesting, if not sometimes annoying. He does, though, have memories of road trips he and his family would take in the 60s, and a lot of his commentary on a place or experience reference back to those memories. So I'm reading a 20 year old book about 20 year old memories. It's sort of interesting to see how much the country has changed in those two intervals.

One of the things that struck me immediately was Bryson's obvious fear and loathing of the South, at least before he got there. He never got to Texas, but he did amble through Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, the Carolinas and Virginia. He spent a lot of time before he got there talking about how much Southerners hate black people, though he did go on to concede later on in the book that the South was much more integrated than the North. At the time of his departure from the States, the Civil Rights laws were less than a decade old, and I suppose that the perception of the South was pretty bad. But it's weird to see that sort of gross generalization laid out.

I didn't really get the impression that his preconceived notions about the South were reinforced or or put to rest or what. He did go out of his way to describe, with some apparent shock, well dressed or articulate black people in the South. Though of course he made fun of their accents.

I've been used to weird generalizations and assumptions about Texas my entire life. Hell, I probably reenforce half of them with talk of the ranch and barbeque and the weird things that happen in this state. And every time some idiot Texan does something stupid, the whole state gets tarred. But it was unsettling to see a guide book of sorts to be so blatant in laying out generalizations.

And, maybe things are that bad. Maybe my willingness to think that times have changed and we're not nearly as bad as we're made out to be is blind and ignorant. I haven't, actually, spent all that much time in the Deep South aside from a few similar road trips. And maybe I don't remember the late 80s as well as I think I do. Maybe the last 20 years, have been so good that I dno't really recall.

I do remember once reading a study from the early nineties. It was presented to me as an argument that people's attitudes about marriage can change considerably over time. I think it was something like only 40 percent of Americans in 1994 (I'm making up the year and percentages, but they're close) approved of intermarriage between blacks people and white. Nowadays, of course, it's a lot higher percentage, and sooner or later (hopefully) the number will be so high that no one bothers to count anymore.

At any rate, I'm two thirds of the way through the book, and I suspect I'll probably finish it sometime over the weekend. I alternatively get mad at it or amused at it. And I guess it makes me think a little, and it makes me laugh. So it's not all that bad....less

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Shane rated it:

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11/15/08

Read in November, 2008

Generally I really enjoy Bryson. His History of Nearly Everything is one of my favorite books generally. This one, however, kind of got on my nerves from the beginning and then mostly stayed there. I had just read a book that basically celebrated everything great about America, and it could be that I just couldn't handle reading these two back-to-back.

He basically complained about things that I happen to love about every place he went. I've been about half the places he visited in the bo...more

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Corbey rated it:

(review of isbn 034910056X)

10/30/08

recommended to Corbey by: an eye level bookshelf
recommends it for: Everyone with a functioning sense of humour

I just love Bill Bryson's books. This one is particularly poignant being Bill's first travel book, undertaken in a recreation of his father's enthusiastically long driving family holidays following his Dad's death a few years earlier.

He has a wistful nostalgia for those times, when towns were all distinguishable from one another, hotels had character whether good or bad and the town centre itself provided all forms of entertainment and necessities within walking distance of home. He pretty ...more

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Tice rated it:

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08/14/08

Read in August, 2008

recommended to Tice by: My dad

I read this book a couple of years ago and remembered thinking it was pretty funny, so when I went on a cross-country drive this summer, I stopped in a bookstore and picked up a copy to see what he might say about the places I was driving through.
I didn't remember wrong. It's a funny book. What I forgot was that he whines and cops a condescending attitude through the whole book. Don't get me wrong; he's a top-notch whiner. It's hilarious in places. But after a while, it feels like listening to...more I read this book a couple of years ago and remembered thinking it was pretty funny, so when I went on a cross-country drive this summer, I stopped in a bookstore and picked up a copy to see what he might say about the places I was driving through.
I didn't remember wrong. It's a funny book. What I forgot was that he whines and cops a condescending attitude through the whole book. Don't get me wrong; he's a top-notch whiner. It's hilarious in places. But after a while, it feels like listening to an extended Andy Rooney diatribe. I wondered why he ever set off in search of small-town America if he despised everything about it. He doesn't explain why, but apparently the existance of an ice cream parlor in a town can ruin the whole experience for him...he complains about stores selling the demon confection in at least two towns; is he lactose-intolerant?
Bryson comes off as the kind of guy who admires small-town people as long as he doesn't have to be around them; he's never happier than when he's downing a six-pack in his motel room alone. When he eats in a public place, he complains about the age and accent of the waitress, or how poor and dirty the other customers are, and boasts about not leaving a tip. When he gets to big cities, hilariously, he's panic stricken that someone will kill him for the contents of his wallet. If he visits a preppy college town, he turns into a champion of the proletariat and wants to piss on every rich kid's sports car. And Southerners...forget it! It's mostly great snarkage, but you eventually have to ask if there's anybody he doesn't despise other than middle-class suburbanites just like him.
You'll notice that what Bryson really is looking for is the the sort of small town that only existed in movies and TV shows he watched when he was growing up in the fifties and sixties. He's disappointed when real places don't live up to his "Leave it to Beaver" expectations. He was only 35 when he wrote this book, and I wished he'd sometimes get out of "things aren't as good as when I was a kid" mode.
It's a fun read for the most part, but I'd take it in chunks instead of all at once, or else you'll be tempted to just tell the old man to go to bed. If you want to snicker and be inspired to travel somewhere, try another book first. His later books (like In a Sunburned Country) do a better job....less

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Don rated it:

(review of isbn 0060920084)

07/31/08

This is funny and insightful travelogue by a guy who was born and raised in Iowa, but who then lived in Britain for thirty years before coming back and taking a road trip around America to reconnect and see what's changed. While it is mostly humorous, there are quite a few instances where his so-called "enlightened" bias comes out against certain places (mostly in the south), at which times his lambasting of the place-names or culture comes across as rather mean-spirited. He's also of ...more

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Randomanthony rated it:

(review of isbn 0060920084)

07/20/08

Read in July, 2008

Ok, if you had a slightly cynical and funny uncle who doesn't want to say too much in front of your parents because he doesn't want to get in trouble about corrupting you and using curse words in your presence but as soon as your parents walk out of the room he tells you what he really thinks of Las Vegas, well, Bill Bryson could be that uncle. Now, I must admit to a fist-pumping appreciation of midwestern courtesy, which Bryson admires and misses as he travels across the country, so my ...more

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Lorenzo rated it:

(review of isbn 0060920084)

08/31/08

Read in September, 2007

recommends it for: Cynics who dislike the US

Bad.While Bryson can be funny at times, I quickly grew tired of him and eventually he just annoyed me with this one. I would have stopped in the middle, but for my book club's sake, I plodded through, skimming some sections toward the end. This isn't real travel writing. Bryson was a longtime expat in England who returned to the US apparently so he could cynically criticize just about everyone and everything he saw here. I got the feeling that he had pitched the book idea to his publisher and go...more

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