Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1540 in Books
• Published on: 1998-04-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Synopsis
In "Neither Here nor There" Bill Bryson brings his unique brand of humour to bear on Europe as he shoulders his backpack, keeps a tight hold on his wallet, and journeys from Hammerfest, the northernmost town on the continent, to Istanbul on the cusp of Asia. Fluent in, oh, at least one language, he retraces his travels as a student 20 years before. Whether braving the homicidal motorists of Paris, being robbed by gypsies in Florence, attempting not to order tripe and eyeballs in a German restaurant, window-shopping in the sex shops of the Reeperbahn or disputing his hotel bill in Copenhagen, Bryson takes in the sights, dissects the culture and illuminates each place and person with his hilariously caustic observations. He even goes to Liechtenstein.

From the Publisher
Bill Bryson's second, achingly funny book, retracing his own steps as a student backpacking through Europe, twenty years later.

About the Author
Bill Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa, in 1951. He settled in England in 1977, and lived for many years with his English wife and four children in North Yorkshire. He and his family then moved to America for a few years but have now returned to the UK. His bestselling travel books include The Lost Continent, Notes From a Small Island, A Walk in the Woods, Notes From a Big Country, and Down Under. He is also the author of the bestselling prizewinner A Short History of Nearly Everything, and The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid.

Customer Reviews

Dated Maybe?
Needing to clear some space on my bookshelves I have decided to reacquaint myself with Bill Bryson's travel books before Bookcrossing them.
This one was written in 1990, first published in 1992 and the edition on my bookshelf in 1998. I enjoyed reading this travelogue of his tour of some of the major cities of Europe, many of those mentioned which I have visited myself during the last forty years. Of those that I have not I think that Sofia in particular may well have changed beyond recognition, Eastern Europe having undergone the most changes in the last eighteen years.
Whilst one might not always agree with Bryson's viewpoint it is none the less an amusing read, though one must also accept that in some aspects it can seem very dated.
Certainly worth reading if you are at all interested in any of the places in Europe he writes about but remember it was written nearly twenty years ago now.

Quite a few clichés but entertaining
Neither Here Nor There is probably more for the novice than the experienced traveller, but it is entertaining and has a usefully broad scope. Bill Bryson, an American resident in London, takes his readers from the Arctic Circle to Istanbul in something like a couple of months, mixing in parts of Scandinavia, the Benelux, France, Germany and Italy among others before passing through the Balkans.

Inevitably a lot is about finding hotels and places to eat, misplaced reservations and the pitfalls of communicating with strangers. This is travel writing, after all. And inevitably there tends to be quite a few clichés and national stereotyping. The commentary ranges from insightful (e.g. different perceptions of Amsterdam) to expected but fun (the police episode in Florence), to downright vulgar ("Quick restaurants - as in quick, pass the bucket!"). I found the first and last chapters, set in northern Norway, then Yugoslavia and Bulgaria, the most interesting. Bryson has more to say in out-of-the-way settings. And having travelled to the latter two at about the same time, I thought his observations both original and to the point. Nor does the book, written in the early 1990s, generally feel out-of-date.

Bryson's style combines a wide descriptive vocabulary with a matter-of-fact, colloquial tone. It drips with irony and evinces plenty of sniggers. The same note is held too long, though, which may explain why one doesn't laugh as much as one would expect: the jokes and witticisms eventually lose an essential element of surprise.

Perhaps not unusually for the genre, the book ends up saying as much about the observer as the observed. It provides a snapshot of how an educated and informed American views the European continent. That may be a reason for Europeans to want to read it.

Very Enjoyable ... Runs out of steam towards the end
This is the sort of book that makes you want to chuck in your job, pack a rucksack, cash in the savings and just go. The itinerary is extensive as are the anecdotes that accompany each trip or place. Its also very funny in parts. However I found that when Bill hit eastern Europe in the last few chapters he and the book ran out of steam. Having said that, at the time of the trip those places were pretty dire anyway.