One of my goals in 2020 is to read more. See other books I've read or listened to here.
I was super excited to get Notes from a Small Island by Bill Bryson, partly bc I have read a few other books of his and enjoyed them and partly bc I love almost anything England centric.
20 years after moving to England, travel writer Bill Bryson is moving home to the USA. Since he loves living in Briton, he takes one last trip around his small island.
Ugh. I really wanted to love this book. But I did not. This book seems to be intended to be a comedic view, part travelog, part revisiting and reminiscing. Bryson is known for his sometimes cantankerous humor, but he was down right dower in this book: cranky, curmudgeonly, cheap and negative for almost every leg of the trip. Claiming that he wanted to see what England had to offer before he left it, he only complained that it was not how he remembered it. He took umbrage at every penny he used to stay or travel or see sites, but insisted on doing little to no research on how to find hotels or attractions that might be more to his taste. For a reader who wanted to learn more about England, who was excited to be on this journey, every aspect was marred by his bad attitudes. His humor was not black, but unfunny and rude most of the time. His travels only saw small pockets of fun or pleasure, and although well written, this was mostly a joyless read. Seemingly designed for those who might find the observations on England’s eccentricities amusing, Bryson was more about fat shaming and calling people stupid rather then making “astute” notes of the “foibles” of the nation (as the NYT seems to have said, according to the cover). I finished this book solely for the glimpses of interesting history or landscape that managed to survive in it. I wish I could recommend a book that showed England in a better light. I cannot really recommend this book at all. If you like Bryson’s writing I would skip this book. If you want to try him, I would not suggest starting here.
Do you have a favorite travelog? What countries are you most interested in reading about?