Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #2209 in Books
• Published on: 2007-06-04
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 416 pages

New York Times
'Outlandishly and improbably entertaining...inevitably [I] would
be reduced to body-racking, tear-inducing, de-couching laughter.'

Literary Review
'Always witty and sometimes hilarious…wonderfully funny and
touching.'

Daily Mail
'A funny, effortlessly readable, quietly enchanted memoir...Bryson
also provides a quirky social history of America.'

Customer Reviews

Perfection
I bought this book without knowing anything about Bill or his following, what her wrote or how he wrote. It was literally a last minute buy before a 2 week holiday. I'd finished before the end of the first week.

I was instantly drawn in by his characteristic writing style, which is playful and informative as ever. I loved learning about his childhood and all the events which surrounded it. I was literally in awe. I'd never read like this before.

So after a week and a half in Cyprus with nothing to read, I was home and went to a bookstore to buy another of his (Notes from a Large Country) which I loved as well.

I've read a few of his now, but still none beat this. And no other writers compare. Read this book!

Not one of his best - for UK readers
In this book, Bryson reminisces about life growing up in Iowa in the 1950s. For anyone else who was a kid in the US in the 1950s, I am sure this book will bring back nostalgic memories. But for those of us who grew up in the UK, the lists of the food he ate, drinks he drank, baseball games he saw and TV shows he watched have very little meaning. The book is written in Bryson's familiar humorous avuncular style, and is quite amusing in places (though much of the humour is rather lavatorial). But it is not in the same league as, for example, Notes From a Small Island. There are the usual exaggerated anecdotes, where the reader is left pondering how much truth there is in them, and the usual nostalgia for times past. I am surprised it has got such good reviews here. Perhaps if I wasn't such a Bryson fan, I wouldn't be so disappointed.

Simply brilliant.
Ah....you know that lovely satisfied feeling you get when you're drinking a cup of tea and eating a couple of chocolate digestives? You'll get the same kind of pleasure you get from reading this book.

It's a memoir of Bill Bryson's childhood; a wonderful tale of America in the 50's through the eyes of a young boy who would one day entertain us all with his wonderful writing skills. I think this is probably one of his best books - as well as detailing fascinating snippets of 1950's small town America, it's also a poignant recollection of a world which has gone forever. It's a story that makes you laugh out loud one minute (this happened a lot) and then smile nostalgically the next as you remember the good old days and times when the world seemed so much bigger, (probably because we were all so much more smaller?).

Wonderful, warm and witty. Tea and chocolate on paper basically.