Notes From a Big Country

Amazon.com ReviewIn the world of contemporary travel writing, Bill Bryson, the bestselling author of

Happily, I’m a Stranger Here Myself unleashes a new Bryson, more contemplative and less likely to toss daggers. After two decades in England, he’s relocated to Hanover, New Hampshire. In this collection (drawn from dispatches for London’s Night & Day magazine), he’s writing from home, in close proximity to wife and family. We find a happy marriage between humor and reflection as he assesses life both in New England and in the contemporary United States. With the telescopic perspective of one who’s stepped out of the American mainstream and come back after 20 years, Bryson aptly holds the mirror up to U.S. culture, capturing its absurdities—such as hotlines for dental floss, the cult of the lawsuit, and strange American injuries such as those sustained from pillows and beds. «In the time it takes you to read this,» he writes, «four of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding.»

The book also reflects the sweet side of small-town USA, with columns about post-office parties, dining at diners, and Thanksgiving—when the only goal is to «get your stomach into the approximate shape of a beach ball» and be grateful. And grateful we are that the previously peripatetic Bryson has returned to the U.S., turning his eye to this land—while living at home and near his wife. Under her benevolent influence, he entertains through thoughtful insights, not sarcastic stabs. —Melissa Rossi

From Publishers WeeklyEx-expatriate Bryson, who chronicled one effort at American reentry in his bestselling A Walk in the Woods, collects another: the whimsical columns on America he wrote weekly, while living in New Hampshire in the mid-to-late 1990s, for a British Sunday newspaper. Although he happily describes himself as dazzled by American ease, friendliness and abundance, Bryson has no trouble finding comic targets, among them fast food, computer efficiency and, ironically, American friendliness and putative convenience. As he edges into Dave Barry-style hyperbole, Bryson sometimes strains for yuks, but he’s deft when he compares the two cultures, as in their different treatment of Christmas, pointing out how the British «pack all their festive excesses» into that single holiday. Bryson also nudges into domestic territory with regular references to his own British wife, the resolutely sensible Mrs. B. In a few columns, Bryson adopts a sentimental tone, writing about his family and his new hometown of Hanover. In others, he’s more sober, criticizing anti-immigration activists, environmental depredation and drug laws (though he draws out the humor in these as well). Not all the columns hit their mark, and they are best read in small groupings, but this collection should sell well enough, although not likely to the heights of A Walk in the Woods. Agent, Jed Mattes. Author tour; BDD audio. Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product DescriptionDes Moines, Iowa born writer Bryson’s first success was the travel book «The Lost Continent». After living in England for several years, he wanted to go back to the USA to find the perfect little US town of his past, he lovingly called Amalgam. More travel books followed, in the form of «Neither Here Nor There» (where he travels through Europe), «Notes From A Small Island» (where he travels around the United Kingdom, before returning back with his to the USA to live there for good) and «A Walk In The Woods» (where he walks the Appalachian trail). After moving back to the States, Bryson started to write a column for «The Mail on Sunday Night and Day» magazine. This is a collection of these column entries. Bryson writes about everything from everyday chores, to sueing people, the beach, TV, movies, air conditioners, college, Americana, injury dangers, wasting resources and holiday seasons.