Bill Bryson Binge

[shipperx]

I'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.

Comments

[ceciliaj.livejournal.com]

I love Bill Bryson. I think my favorite is the one about Australia.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Haven't read that one. Probably will eventually, though. :)

[molliemole.livejournal.com]

I've read heaps of Bill Bryson books and enjoyed every one of them... except The Lost Continent. He must have been in an extended sour mood when he wrote that one.

[londonkds.livejournal.com]

Are you US? I'm the opposite, I'm British and liked all of them except "Notes From a Small Island", which seemed to me to have too much moaning about how Britain wasn't catering to Americans by remaining in a quaint timewarp.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I think that's a general, across the board sentiment of his. As an architect, I grow tired at times of hearing his complaints about 'what some architect did' as if architects had free reign on a project and weren't being financed and instructed about the program from the clients that commissioned them.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I haven't read that one. I'm thinking of reading the one about objects around the house, next.

[paratti.livejournal.com]

The Peter Ackroyd book on Shakespeare is well worth reading.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Haven't read that one.

I will say the Bryson one made clear just how incredibly INSANE the supposed timeline for "Anonymous" truly is. The timeline in the movie makes no sense whatsoever.

[beer-good-foamy.livejournal.com]

Bill Bryson is awesome.

Speaking of conspiracy theories and Shakespeare authorship, I recently read a pretty good book that discusses (briefly) the Shakespeare question among others from the perspective of why some people are so hellbent on refusing to accept the "official" truth, Voodoo Histories by David Aaronovitch. Recommended.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

Oooh! Interesting. The Anonymous movie was downright offensive in the way that it proclaims that only a self-righteous douchebag aristocrat could 'possibly' have written everything and that the guy we think the writer was a cowardly, blackmailing, murdering dufus.

[sourisvho.livejournal.com]

I'm a big fan of Bill Bryson. Have you read "A Walk in the Woods"?

I was studying abroad in the early '90s, too! Manchester, England, for me. I have to confess, I didn't like Florence.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I had thought that "A Walk in the Woods" was in the collection. But I'll have to check it out.

On Study abroad for the majority of the time we were based in Florence so I spent months there.

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

What about "A Walk in the Woods"? Which admittedly the only one I've read. [No wait, I also read the one about Australia. I love Bill Bryson.]

Ah, our Dad's are close to the same age. Mine's 76, turning 77 this year.
With the Momster turning 70.

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

I haven't read "A Walk in the Woods." I had thought that it was included in the anthology but it wasn't.

This was the first time I had read Bryson's travel books. Prior to that my familiarity with him came from "A Short History of Nearly Everything."