Product Description

After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson, the acclaimed author of such bestsellers as "The Mother Tongue" and "Made in America", decided it was time to move back to the United States for a while. This was partly to let his wife and kids experience life in Bryson's homeland - and partly because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another. It was thus clear to him that his people needed him. But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of modern-day Britain, and to analyze what he loved so much about a country that had produced Marmite, zebra crossings, and place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey, and Shellow Bowells. With wit and irreverence, Bill Bryson presents the ludicrous and the endearing in equal measure. The result is a social commentary that conveys the true glory of Britain.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1316 in Books
• Published on: 1996-08-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 259 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
Bill Bryson is an unabashed Anglophile who, through a mistake of history, happened to be born and bred in Iowa. Righting that error, he spent 20 years in England before deciding to repatriate: "I had recently read that 3.7 million Americans according to a Gallup poll, believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, so it was clear that my people needed me." That comic tone enlivens this account of Bryson's farewell walking tour of the countryside of "the green and kindly island that had for two decades been my home."

From the Publisher
England's favourite American's book about his adopted country: his hilarious No.1 bestseller.

From the Back Cover
After nearly two decades in Britain, Bill Bryson took the decision to move back to the States for a while, to let his kids experience life in another country, to give his wife the chance to shop until 10 p.m. seven nights a week, and, most of all, because he had read that 3.7 million Americans believed that they had been abducted by aliens at one time or another, and it was thus clear to him that his people needed him.

But before leaving his much-loved home in North Yorkshire, Bryson insisted on taking one last trip around Britain, a sort of valedictory tour of the green and kindly island that had so long been his home. His aim was to take stock of the nation's public face and private parts (as it were), and to analyse what precisely it was he loved so much about a country that produced Marmite, a military hero whose dying wish was to be kissed by a fellow named Hardy, place names like Farleigh Wallop, Titsey and Shellow Bowells, people who said 'Mustn't grumble', and Gardeners' Question Time.

Customer Reviews

Every Brit should read this book - Jolly good show old chap!
From the moment I picked this book up in WH Smith at Heathrow airport I knew that whatever else happened on my business trip to Istanbul, the journey was already worthwhile.

Bill Bryson has an insightful view of Britain and the British that can only come from living 'among us' for a considerable period.

His understanding of the British people is uncanny and more akin to that of a Brit who has lived in the US for a long time, rather than an American that has lived in Britain.

I spent much of my time while reading the book laughing out loud in public places (which I know is not the done thing for an Englishman - sorry !)

This book asks some of the same qustions I asked when I returned to my native Britain from a period living in the USA.

I finished the book in 2 days and immediately sought out the only English language copy of Bryson's other classic 'Notes from a Big Country' in Istanbul.

But that's another story...

Good in parts
Bryson is an American who has lived in England for many years. This book was written in 1994, and shows its age in some respects (reference to the excellent railway system, jokes about Princess Margaret, Princess Diana and the Queen Mother) but remains a very affectionate take on England and the English by a near-insider.

At times his prose rises to the hysterically funny, as in his comparison of the contents of American and British women's magazines in the early 1970s, or the Studland peninsula ("well known as the only place where you can see all seven British reptiles - the grass snake, smooth snake, adder, slow worm, common lizard, sand lizard and Michael Portillo").

Bryson is particularly good on architecture, and excoriates the concreting-over of city centres and the worst excrescences of the twentieth century. Here he is on the Warden's Quarters of Merton College, Oxford:

"What a remarkable series of improbabilities were necessary to its construction. First, some architect had to design it, had to wander through a city steeped in 800 years of architectural tradition, and with great care conceive of a structure that looked like a toaster with windows. Then a committee of finely educated minds at Merton had to show the most extraordinary indifference to their responsibilities to posterity and say to themselves, 'You know, we've been putting up handsome buildings since 1264; let's have an ugly one for a change.' Then the planning authorities had to say, 'Well, why not? Plenty worse in Basildon.'"

He's also very good on hotels, landscapes, food and the general impressions made by a place on the new arrival. He's not very good at getting sympathetic stories from people; most of the characters described in depth are lunatically unhelpful transport officials or hoteliers.

He's also not very good outside England. The Scottish section of the book is surprisingly dull, and the Welsh bits actually offensive (remarks about Asperger's Syndrome, Parkinson's disease, place names that sound like a cat bringing up a hairball).

Anyway, a book that did make me laugh out loud several times, but more in its first half than in its second.

Rib-tickling!
My friend bought this book for me to read whilst i travelled solo to the USA.As i had a 7 hour wait in NY airport, i got stuck in to this. I'm sure every Newark Airport worker and visitor at that time thought i was a stark raving English loony! This is a hilarious, tongue-in-cheek book which simultaneously made me cringe with embarrassment (yep, we Brits actually DO the things he says) whilst puffing my chest out in pride at being British! Bryson takes the reader on a tour around Britain venturing from one end of the land to the other and I really felt like i was there with him, through the strife and rain (of course). His narrative is informative (i learnt a heck of a lot about my own country...from an American! Of all people!) and comical. He introduces the reader to typical (and not-so-typical) British folk and ponders over such things as the unanswerable question of 'where have all the red telephone booths gone?'. I never realised that i had such a beautiful, diverse land for exploration on my own doorstep. A hilarious, rib-tickling book which literally did have me snorting aloud with laughter (and consequently ducking my head in embarrassment!).Great for reading whilst on your travels.It MAY make you want to come back home...