Leftbanker's Reviews > Neither Here nor There: Travels in Europe

Why bother to actually travel when you can just regurgitate stereotypes that have been passed around since man invented borders? Honest to God, he really complains about haughty Parisian waiters. I didn’t find anything in this book of essays to be even remotely insightful and I don’t ever find Bryson to be funny. Most of what I have read by him is just a collection of his gripes against the rest of humanity.

I have never read any of his travel stuff where he actually meets an interesting person who has something worth saying. When I first read this several years ago I just figured that it was the first thing Bryson wrote, perhaps when he was a college student packbacking around Europe. It was published when he was 4o years old. It is completely lacking in the sort of wisdom you would expect from a writer of that age.

I like most of his non-travel books just so you won't think that I have it in for this guy. He just seems to hate to travel and he despises everyone he meets along the way. Stay the fuck home.