Bill Bryson Binge
Jun. 6th, 2012 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
shipperxI've been on a bit of a Bill Bryson binge, bookwise. I ended up with a collectors edition that combined:
Notes from a Small Island Bryson is an ex-pat American who lived in Britain for 20+ years and was taking one last tour around the place before moving back to the U.S. for a while. It's a gently amusing travelogue of Britain and some of its eccentricities.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself Stories of culture shock after having lived abroad for 20 years (though honestly, this one reads more like a collection of newspaper columns... which he was writing at the time. A lot of painfully true observations about American culture and eccentricities.
Neither Here Nor There Sort of a 'two for' tour of Europe with both his memories of travelling through Europe in the early 1970s and a second trip to most of the same places in 1990. (Interesting to me as I was in study abroad in the early 1990s. I seeminghly had a more positive experience of Florence than he did. Though I agree with him that Capri was (is I hope) spectacular).
And, since I watched that terrible Anonymous last night, I've now added Bryson's Shakespeare which is about what we do actually know about Shakespeare (which is... not a lot. But then, it's also a good amount considering we know even LESS about his contemporaries such as Ben Jonson).
And though it has been quite some time since I read it, I'll add a good word for one of my favorite books -- Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
Also, it was my Dad's 75th birthday today. We bought him a coconut cake (well, cards, shrimp for dinner, and a coconut cake.) He was saddened that Alabama's women's softball game (they're playing for the national championship) was rained out and said he planed to stay up late to watch it. Yep, there's a reason we tease him that he would watch darn near anything played with a ball.
Notes from a Small Island Bryson is an ex-pat American who lived in Britain for 20+ years and was taking one last tour around the place before moving back to the U.S. for a while. It's a gently amusing travelogue of Britain and some of its eccentricities.
I'm a Stranger Here Myself Stories of culture shock after having lived abroad for 20 years (though honestly, this one reads more like a collection of newspaper columns... which he was writing at the time. A lot of painfully true observations about American culture and eccentricities.
Neither Here Nor There Sort of a 'two for' tour of Europe with both his memories of travelling through Europe in the early 1970s and a second trip to most of the same places in 1990. (Interesting to me as I was in study abroad in the early 1990s. I seeminghly had a more positive experience of Florence than he did. Though I agree with him that Capri was (is I hope) spectacular).
And, since I watched that terrible Anonymous last night, I've now added Bryson's Shakespeare which is about what we do actually know about Shakespeare (which is... not a lot. But then, it's also a good amount considering we know even LESS about his contemporaries such as Ben Jonson).
And though it has been quite some time since I read it, I'll add a good word for one of my favorite books -- Bryson's A Short History of Nearly Everything
Also, it was my Dad's 75th birthday today. We bought him a coconut cake (well, cards, shrimp for dinner, and a coconut cake.) He was saddened that Alabama's women's softball game (they're playing for the national championship) was rained out and said he planed to stay up late to watch it. Yep, there's a reason we tease him that he would watch darn near anything played with a ball.
