Product Description: After living in Britain for two decades, Bill Bryson recently moved back to the United States with his English wife and four children (he had read somewhere that nearly 3 million Americans believed they had been abducted by aliens--as he later put it, "it was clear my people needed me"). They were greeted by a new and improved America that boasts microwave pancakes, twenty-four-hour dental-floss hotlines, and the staunch conviction that ice is not a luxury item.
Delivering the brilliant comic musings that are a Bryson hallmark, I'm a Stranger Here Myself recounts his sometimes disconcerting reunion with the land of his birth. The result is a book filled with hysterical scenes of one man's attempt to reacquaint himself with his own country, but it is also an extended if at times bemused love letter to the homeland he has returned to after twenty years away.
Amazon.com Review: In the world of contemporary travel writing, Bill Bryson, the bestselling author of A Walk in the Woods, often emerges as a major contender for King of Crankiness. Granted, he complains well and humorously, but between every line of his travel books you can almost hear the tinny echo: "I wanna go home, I miss my wife."
Happily, I'm a Stranger Here Myself unleashes a new Bryson, more contemplative and less likely to toss daggers. After two decades in England, he's relocated to Hanover, New Hampshire. In this collection (drawn from dispatches for London's Night & Day magazine), he's writing from home, in close proximity to wife and family. We find a happy marriage between humor and reflection as he assesses life both in New England and in the contemporary United States. With the telescopic perspective of one who's stepped out of the American mainstream and come back after 20 years, Bryson aptly holds the mirror up to U.S. culture, capturing its absurdities--such as hotlines for dental floss, the cult of the lawsuit, and strange American injuries such as those sustained from pillows and beds. "In the time it takes you to read this," he writes, "four of my fellow citizens will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding."
The book also reflects the sweet side of small-town USA, with columns about post-office parties, dining at diners, and Thanksgiving--when the only goal is to "get your stomach into the approximate shape of a beach ball" and be grateful. And grateful we are that the previously peripatetic Bryson has returned to the U.S., turning his eye to this land--while living at home and near his wife. Under her benevolent influence, he entertains through thoughtful insights, not sarcastic stabs. --Melissa Rossi
Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: - The travel essay master
If you've lived outside the US, come from another country or ever wondered what people from other places think of Americans and the US on our home turf then this is a book you have to read. If this was ... Read More
Rating: - One of his best
I thought this was one of Bryson's best......short weekly column type stories on one subject. They were humorous, to the point, and folksy. He does (as he says himself) complain a bit too much, but if ... Read More
Rating: - It's great to laugh at yourself if you are living in America
This is the 2nd book I have read by Bill Bryson. I enjoyed it! I admire someone who can take normal life in America and write with such humor. I found myself giggling every few paragraphs. Such talent ... Read More
Rating: - Too much America bashing...
Not his best work. He is getting a bit too left leaning but still funny at times.
Rating: - Laugh out loud funny
In 1995, Bill Bryson returned to live in the United States after living in England for 20 years. A British newspaper asked him to write a weekly column about America and I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes ... Read More
- The travel essay master
- Too much America bashing...