Has someone ever heard of the writer Bill Bryson, (The Lost Continent, Notes From a Big Country, Neither Here or There, Down Under, Made in America, a.o.) How are his books? I read something on cnn.com about a new book called 'A Short History of Nearly Everything' and it looked interesting.
Bill Bryson is off and on. When he's on, he's hilarious; you'll be literally laughing out loud. When he's off, it's usually when he goes into his history lessons. Don't get me wrong; he tries to make it interesting, and paces it very well, but sometimes he doesn't quite pull it off.
i.e. His Australia book is divided into three parts, covering three separate trips. He hooked me in the first part which was hysterical, but bored me with the second part. (Third was okay.)
I recommend Bryson's "A Stranger Here Myself" and "A Walk In The Woods."
If you're into travel humor, read some Doug Lansky books. He's absolutely my favorite travel writer and a big influence on my writing style.
My favorite is his book on Australia called "Down Under" (also called "In a sunburnt country"). It was hilarious - as eeyartee says, I was laughing out loud as I read it. That does not happen often.
Since then, I've bought a few others by him and have been dissappointed - "A walk in the woods" and "notes from a small island" were OK. "Neither here nor there" was awful - rather than being funny, I just found it far to critical and caustic.
zoinks, you're very polite. I think that Brysen comes across as a whiney, classist, ego-maniacal woosie who makes sport of mocking the less fortunate in his own country (clearly, his undereducated inferiors)--sure, Oz Outback fellas are quaint but small town American bubbas are ridiculous and a waste of his time....ummmmm...I mean, he's not my favorite
Sunburnt Country is a hoot in which one can embrace his woosieness because Oz IS a dangerous place, the rest are, well, weak sauce
And, does anyone ever notice his constant references to porn in all of his books? me thinks Bryson's got a little hankering for some spanking
cs
Posts: 1051 | Location: U.S. | Registered: 17 March 2003
