I have 9 reviews that I need to post, so forgive me if some of them are on the briefer side! This Bill Bryson book is a collection of newspaper articles that spanned several years in the nineties. Basically, Bryson went to go live in England for 20 years and when he came back he was slightly startled to see changes — not only how much America was different from England, but also how it had changed in the years that he’d been gone. So […]
Bears, Moose, Mary Ellen!
So after I finished Bryson’s Thunderbolt Kid, I checked Overdrive to see what other books of his they offered. A Walk in the Woods came highly recommended, and I’m here now to recommend it to you! If you want to read several hundred pages about the beautiful scenery and history of the Appalachian Trail and come away thinking, “God lord, I’d love to do that but those people are crazy!”, then you should definitely read this. “Black bears rarely attack. But here’s the thing. Sometimes they do. […]
“I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to.”
I can’t believe I’ve never read Bill Bryson before, especially considering how much I love other humorists his age, like Dave Barry. Bryson has a very similar style of writing, very funny and a hyperbolic way. But I’m definitely a fan now. “It wasn’t that my mother and father were indifferent to their children’s physical well-being by any means. It was just that they seemed to believe that everything would be fine in the end and they were always right.” The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt […]
The perfect book for dorks like me
I’m the weirdo who always thinks about the details of historical living. How exactly did they come up with indoor plumbing and how in the world did they create such a complex system to accommodate everyone’s plumbing needs? How was the infrastructure built to so many houses? Same with electricity. How in the world did they get everything set up so cities were connected to power? These are the dorky things I think about when I read historical books. So when I heard that there […]
The Road Goes Ever On and On
In 1996, travel writer published Notes from a Small Island, a sort of farewell tour before moving back to the US with his family. Now, 20 years later, once again living in England, Bryson travels around the U.K. again, mostly to towns and attractions he hadn’t been to in the previous book. The Road to Little Dribbling is the story of this second trip. I’ve read all of Bryson’s travelogues, and he’s always been cranky and somewhat haughty when faced with his fellow humans’ stupidity. […]
Where Men Are Men and Sheep Are Nervous
Fun fact: from where I live, it’s possible to drive just under a thousand kilometres and pass through eight different countries. Fun fact: this is roughly the same distance as between Sydney and Brisbane. And in Australia, those two are practically neighbours. Australia is mind-bogglingly big, is the point I’m trying to make. So is Bill Bryson in In a Sunburned Country, his report of a roundtrip through Australia in the late nineties. In fact, it is something of a recurring theme within the book: […]
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