bill bryson notes from a small island review

'Suddenly, in the space of a moment, I realized what it was that I loved about Britain-which is to say, all of it. ' If you're an Anglophile, you'll devour Notes from a Small Island. I noted the names of the little villages we passed through-Pinhead, West Stuttering, Bakelite, Ham Hocks, Sheepshanks. Bryson's marvelous ear is also in evidence: '. Notes from a Small Island strikes a nice balance: the writing is American-silly with a British range of vocabulary. Bryson does an excellent job of showing his adopted home to a Yank audience, but you never get the feeling that Bryson is too much of an outsider to know the true nature of the country. Now Bryson has decided his native country needs him-but first, he's going on a roundabout jaunt on the island he loves.īritain fascinates Americans: it's familiar, yet alien the same in some ways, yet so different.

Working for such places as Times of London, among others, he has lived quite happily there ever since. Reacting to an itch common to Midwesterners since there's been a Midwest from which to escape, writer Bill Bryson moved from Iowa to Britain in 1973.

Bill bryson notes from a small island review