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Have been meaning to read this for ages as it keeps getting refered to a lot. It was eventually rescued from a book burning (yes Marks and Spencers burn books they cant sell.. i was a bit shocked to find this out)
well, it is by no means as funny or as inventive as i had been led to believe.. there are a couple of laugh out loud moments but the rest as painful and hard work. he seems to focus most on what is crap about the Uk and skips what is good. we know what is crap about the UK .. we live here.. what i wanted to hear about were the hidden gems.. it turns out that most of then are up north and err i know about them.
GUy is a numpty, don’t even bother with the Aussie one. The one on America (Notes from a Big Island?) is worth a small giggle, but is mostly tedious
I dont know… the whole thing that sets him apart from your usual travel writers is the fact that he goes to the crap bits that other people ignore. The stuff he tells us about milton keynes for example is so true… yet no one else bothers to go there on holiday do they?
He has some very perceptive insights into the British character I reckon – its true what he says about how polite and friendly we are compared to other societies… but are too unasuming to shout about our good points. I loved how he points out that Britush people are so happy with little things in life… a nice cup of tea or a scone make a dreary day at the seaside seem like a good day out to Brits… you wont find that in the states or continental Europe.
Worth a read… but not for laugh out loud humour.
The missus and her family love this Bill Bryson bloke but he gets right on my tits. “You should read this it’s really goog blah blah blah”.
“No I ‘kin shouldn’t luv, now stop going on and make my tea” etc…Still, he’s generally well thought of so it must be me.
I could only get through the fist couple of chapters of Small Island – just found it a bit dull. As others have said, the odd laugh, but not enough for me.
I’ve enjoyed other stuff of his though – I think it may depend on whether you know or have been to the area he’s on about.
“A Walk in the Woods” is very good – but I love the area of the US he talks about and I’ve done some of the Appalachian Trail.
“Down Under” I quite liked – probably more than the previous one. Again, it covers some of Oz that I know.
I’ve tried a few others of his but like Small Island tended to stop quite early. Now the irony here, of course, is that I do know the Small Island ‘cos I live here! Maybe I only like the books about places I visit and like too?
And a Short History of Nearly Everything was really good. Well worth a read. It’s one of those books you think “I must remember this for down the pub”, and you just keep saying that every paragraph. And then only remembering half the stuff when you do get to the boozer.
For some reason women really go for his books and read all of them. My wife has most of them and loves them to bits. Dunno why that is.
@Lensman wrote:
For some reason women really go for his books and read all of them. My wife has most of them and loves them to bits. Dunno why that is.
Nuff said
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