I've read several of Bill Bryson's books and thoroughly enjoyed them, so when "Notes from a Big Country" came up on BookMooch I was looking forward to reading it without having to pay for it (I know the library is another option, but I like to keep books written by my favourite authors - and ... Read review
"Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the United States", every ... more
year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the UnitedStates", every year ... more
more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds,mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000 bed,...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Free!
"Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the United States", every ... more
year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the UnitedStates", every year ... more
more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds,mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000 bed,...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
"Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the United States", every ... more
year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000...
Postage & Packaging: £2.75 Availability: Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
"Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the United States", every ... more
year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000...
Postage & Packaging: refer to website Availability: Check Site.
After nearly 20 years of living in Britain, the Bryson family left the rolling hills and ... more
Yorkshire puddings of Yorkshire for the big hats and tall buildings of the United States. But before they left, Bill insisted on taking one last trip around Britain. It was this trip that resulted in his highly successful Notes from a Small Island. When he finally found his way across the channel to New Hampshire, Bryson began the weekly newspaper column that would become Notes from a Big Country. The Complete Notes combines these two popular books into one hefty volume. Whereas most such projects can be written off as a cynical money-spinner, the decision to merge these popular books into one hefty volume can be justified by Bryson's fascination with the differences between the two countries. In the opening chapter of Notes from a Small Island, Bryson writes: "If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance that most Americans would happily go to get a taco, your companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say, "Well, now that's a bit of a tall order..." Bryson's essays are packed with subtly ridiculous insights and smart anecdotes, making The Complete Notes an essential read for anyone with an interest in Anglo-American relations. --Daren King
Postage & Packaging:refer to website Availability:Free!
After nearly 20 years of living in Britain, the Bryson family left the rolling hills and ... more
Yorkshire puddings of Yorkshire for the big hats and tall buildings of the United States. But before they left, Bill insisted on taking one last trip around Britain. It was this trip that resulted in his highly successfulNotes from a Small Island. When he finally found his way across the channel to New Hampshire, Bryson began the weekly newspaper column that would becomeNotes from a Big Country.The Complete Notescombines these two popular books into one hefty volume.Whereas most such projects can be written off as a cynical money-spinner, the decision to merge these popular books into one hefty volume can be justified by Bryson's fascination with the differences between the two countries. In the opening chapter ofNotes from a Small Island, Bryson writes: "If you mention in the pub that you intend to drive from, say, Surrey to Cornwall, a distance that most Americans would happily go to get a taco, your companions will puff their cheeks, look knowingly at each other, and blow out air as if to say, "Well, now that's a bit of a tall order..." Bryson's essays are packed with subtly ridiculous insights and smart anecdotes, makingThe Complete Notesan essential read for anyone with an interest in Anglo-American relations. --Daren King
Postage & Packaging:£2.75 Availability:Usually dispatched within 1-2 business days...
"Here's a fact for you. According to the latest "Abstract of the United States", every ... more
year more than 400,00 Americans suffer injuries involving beds, mattresses or pillows...That is more people than live in greater Coventry. That is almost 2,000 bed, mattress or pillow injuries a day. In the time it takes you to read this article, four Americans will somehow manage to be wounded by their bedding."Fans of Bill Bryson will know by now that this is the kind of completely useless information that gets him excited. In fact, you are unlikely to read anyone else who derivesquiteso much pleasure from meaningless statistics. If those statistics are about the USA (Bryson's homeland) or his adopted England--or even better, comparing one to the other--then he is in heaven. And it is not only the uselessness of the information that interests him, but also the fact that Americans spend millions of dollars and hours each year collecting such data together.Though not a match for his earlier success ofNotes from a Small Island,Notes from a Big Countrytakes a good second place. It collects together more than 18 months worth ofMail on Sundaycolumns which Bryson wrote between October 1996 and May 1998 after he and his English wife and children returned to the US and settled in New England. The only thing that outshines his amazement--and sometimes, outright dismay--at the way American society has changed while he's been away, is his English-born family's instant embracing of transatlantic culture.A word of warning: reading Bill Bryson is not a spectator sport...you are invited-- in fact, compelled--to marvel at how the nation that "has the largest economy, the most comfortably off people, the best research facilities, many of the finest universities and think-tanks, and more Nobel Prize winners than the rest of the world put together" could be the same nation where "13 per cent of women...cannot say whether they wear their tights under their knickers or over them. That's something like 12 million women walking around in a state of chronic foundation garment uncertainty." This is Bryson at his best, and though not every column inch hits the heady heights of underwear distribution, there are enough laugh-out-loud moments to keep you satisfied.Detractors of Bryson's work complain all his books are the same, yet dedicated followers cite that very uniformity of style and subject as the reason they return, book after book. Anyone disappointed byA Walk in the Woods(Bryson's account of hiking the Appalachian Trail and not his best book) will have their faith restored byNotes from a Big Country-- here Bryson returns to his favourite subject and the simple, journalistic prose that makes his wacky facts and observations instantly accessible.Bryson does not pretend to deliver an intellectual treatise on the state of mankind; instead he offers one man's take on how humanity lurches from one day to another--ironically through the kinds of details he mocks others for collecting. --Lucie Naylor
Postage & Packaging:refer to website Availability:Usually dispatched within 24 hours...
Advantages: It's Bill Bryson, hilarious, excellently written, short stories Disadvantages: Some parts repeated from other books, can be irritating!
I've read several of Bill Bryson's books and thoroughly enjoyed them, so when "Notes from a Big Country" came up on BookMooch I was looking forward to reading it without having to pay for it (I know the library is another option, but I like to keep books written by my favourite authors - and Bryson is certainly in my top 20).
Rather than being a book as such, it is a collection of 78 short articles which Bill Bryson wrote ... ...in the Mail on Sunday's Night & Day magazine during 1997-1998. Therefore as you'll see it is very much written for a British audience.
=== About Bill Bryson ===
Born in Des Moines (Iowa) in 1951, Bryson moved to England in the late 1970s and spent 20 years over here before moving back to the US with his British wife and children. This gives him a very different outlook on things, and he has been described ... more
I've read several of Bill Bryson's books and thoroughly enjoyed them, so when "Notes from a Big Country" came up on BookMooch I was looking forward to reading it without having to pay for it (I know the library is another option, but I like to keep books written by my favourite authors - and Bryson is certainly in my top 20).
Rather than being a book as such, it is a collection of 78 short articles which Bill Bryson wrote for a column (which he was coerced into writing for!) in the Mail on Sunday's Night & Day magazine during 1997-1998. Therefore as you'll see it is very much written for a British audience.
About Bill Bryson
Born in Des Moines (Iowa) in 1951, Bryson moved to England in the late 1970s and spent 20 years over here before moving back to the US with his British wife and children. This gives him a very different outlook on things, and he has been described as an honorary Brit. It means that he can joke about the Americans and their ways without being accused of anything, after all he is one of them. But having been away and experiencing a different culture it also means he can look at the American way of life in a certain kind of detached way. He also has a very British sense of humour; something which I'm sure you'll agree (Bill Bryson does) is a rarity in American.
The Book
Through the book Bryson covers many different aspects of modern American life, from free doughnuts in the post office, to unfortunate accidents involving underwear; from energy wasting to hiking in a mall; from gizmos and gadgets to Thanksgiving, Christmas and Presidents' day. Everything that is modern America is in there, and also everything which was America when Bryson was growing up, but is sadly no longer. And since the book is now 10 years old I imagine that things are even worse (or better depending on which way you look at things) than they were then.
This is the sort of book that you can dip in and out of - ideal for bedtime or toilet reading. However I generally read books from start to finish (and I don't read in the toilet), and perhaps I missed out by reading it like this. But I was enjoying it so much that I wanted to read onto the next story.
I will share with you a summary of several of the articles in the book:
Coming Home
The first article in the book - Bryson talks about what it was like returning to his home country after so long away, describing it as "a little like waking from a long coma". While some things are the same, others have changed, and having not been middle-aged in the US before Bryson has never had to deal with things like buying Polyfilla (called Spackle) and wiring a house the American way. This article sets the scene for the rest of the book.Junk Food Heaven
Following a rare clean of the fridge, Bryson comes across a breakfast pizza which had been hidden there! Living in "a paradise of junk food" while Bryson's long-suffering wife has been buying Ryvita and broccoli, he has been dreaming of yellow squirty cheese, 200 types of breakfast cereal and chocolate fudge devil dogs…..the stuff which fills American supermarkets.
"I wanted food that squirts when you bite into it or plops onto your shirt front in such gross quantities that you have to rise carefully and limbo over to the sink to clean yourself up."Where Scotland is, and Other useful tips
Interested to find out how much the Americans really know about the UK, Bryson heads off to the library to do some research, and searches the travel guides. Learning that Scotland is north of England and that Glasgow doesn't rhyme with cow….well it's hardly surprising why Americans appear to us to know nothing!
Our Friend The Moose
Of course this is my favourite chapter (due to the moose aspect), and I had read it before several years ago when a friend photocopied it for me. Bryson is talking about the BSE scare in the UK, put putting a novel twist on the situation, suggests the following rather than slaughtering the cows:
"My idea is that we should ship all those cows over here and set them loose in the Great North Woods…My thinking is that this might distract the hunters from shooting moose."
Sounds good to me! I love Bryson's description of a moose as "a cow drawn by a three-year-old" and their "antlers that look like oven gloves". I'm not too sure about the "boundless lack of intelligence" though, although after reading about their escapades on the road I might have to rethink!
I'm afraid that my summaries really cannot do justice to Bryson's writing style. Just trust me, he's funny!
Conclusion
A lot of times you'll probably find yourself saying "only in America" (although some things increasingly apply to modern Britain too), and if you're like me getting a bit frustrated and irritated.
I would certainly recommend this to anyone who wants an insight into modern (well, late 1990s anyway) American life, anyone who likes Bill Bryson, and anyone who gets frustrated with the following - commercials, filling in forms, junk mail, junk food, computers, haircuts, rules for the sake of rules, the rise in chains of restaurants (etc) and decline in tradition, and general stupidity (among others).
You'll almost certainly get some laughs out of it!
Advantages: Bryson's dry, stinging wit Disadvantages: A little repetitive...I say, a little repetitive
...not the latest written), was Notes from a Big Country.
As I said, delivering trivial facts and figures in an amusing fashion is Bryson's forte and when those facts are about the land of his birth (USA), and are compared then related to his once adopted homeland (UK), I can visualize him virtually drooling at the prospect.
And so, following his return to live in New England after 20-odd years domiciled in Olde England, when the editor of the British ... ...weekly magazine column documenting his return home, you would imagine he'd leap at the chance.
Actually, he kept complaining that he didn't have the time and was dragged into the enterprise kicking and screaming.
I'm afraid it shows.
The book is a collection of 78 of these articles which were written over a period of 18 months between Oct '96 and May '98 after he and his English family returned to the US and settled in New Hampshire.
As they ...
proxam 26.01.2009 (27.01.2009)
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
Advantages: Funny, revealing and thought-provoking Disadvantages: A couple of misses
...life in 1990s America, but Notes from a Big Country comes close. Bryson tells us what's good and great about the US and what isn't (at least, in his opinion). Apparently, we Europeans have far superior chocolate and coffee. Good to know. I really liked this book - it's funny and full of personality. Just how I imagine Bill Bryson to be. Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
ISBN 978-0552997867
RRP £8.99; available on Amazon for £6.99.
Also available ...
DoubleFantasy11 08.07.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
Advantages: easy to read short chapters. very funny. Disadvantages: only bite-sized chunks, no actual story
Taken from Bill Bryson's weekly column in the Mail on Sunday's Night and Day magazine, and is a compendium of over seventy of his articles there. They focus on American life, the oddities of, differences from here, and generally anything funny and intersting about our neighbours across the pond.
One of my favourite chapters is the one in which Bryson examines reasons for visits to A&E while he is flicking through books in a library. Some of them ... ...more people are injured each year by sound recording equipment than are by razorblades!? And somehow over 260000 people each year manage to injure themselves with ceilings, walls or inside panels. Amazing! Other chapters deal with topics such as convenience food, beaurocracy, winter in Des Moines, the american obsession with rules, reasons to be worried (apparently the Pentagon gets hacked a LOT, and police forces sometimes lose explosives in public ...
freeridemtber 28.03.2007
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
Advantages: Bill's style of writing even makes "boring" subjects interesting Disadvantages: none
I've been as far north as the Isle of Skye, as far west as Dublin, as far east as Durban and as far south as Cape Town, but I've never been to America. Yet, reading this book, Bill Bryson's descriptions of his return to his homeland after twenty years or so in Britain, I feel as though I could have been there with him. This book, so I read at the start, was a compilation of the first eighteen months of a weekly column Bill wrote for the Night and ... ...I don't think I ever read the original columns but I could read this book over and over again. In each chapter Bill tackles, in his own inimitable fashion, the complexities and problems, dilemmas, frustrations and emotional bits about going "home again". In fact his first column discusses precisely this - he has come back to his homeland after doing every adult thing he ever did (buying a house, getting a mortgage, acquiring DIY items etc) in Britain ...
KateHurst 19.05.2009
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: very helpful Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
Advantages: A fantastic take on all of the complexities of modern life Disadvantages: None
This book gives a hilariously unique view on everything to do with the many aspects of life in America today. His unique blend of British humour combined with the bluntness that is so characteristic of many americans makes this hugely varied book a highly entertaining read. Taken as extracts from his weekly column for the Daily mail, this book contains about 80 of the best from his years of writing, covering a wide range of topics, from American ... ...burocracy. This book is surprisingly easy to read. The columns are each laid out seperatly as completly independant views that change subject with each new section. This makes the book ideal for less persistant or dedicated readers as you can jump in and out of the book at pretty much any point and still find it very entertaining. That said I found the book utterly unputdownable, and have read it through many times. Even now it still makes me burst ...
bnmnmmb 04.06.2008
· Read full review
Ciao members have rated this review on average: helpful Review of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson
How useful was it?
Would you read it again?
Similar reviews »
Reviews which might be of interest for "Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson"
. Actually, don't expect it to open your eyes if the UK isn't your home country. Instead, read it for the humour. And to see what Bryson thinks of your neck of the woods.
Notesfrom a Small Island - BillBryson
ISBN 978-0552996006
RRP £8.99; available on Amazon for £5.30.
Also available in The Complete Notes, with the superior Notesfrom a BigCountry.
ISBN 978-0385601313
Hardback RRP £10.99; available on Amazon for £8.57 so works out cheaper than buying them both separately as paperbacks.
For my review on Notesfrom a BigCountry, see:
http://www.ciao.co.uk/NotesfromaBigCountryBillBrysonReview57 71434 ...
Advantages: Comfortable, warm writing style Disadvantages: Not as jam packed with wit as we've come to expect
at notesfrom a bigcountry). Nevertheless, it won\'t put me off his writing, and you can be sure his latest book, Shakespeare, is top of my christmas list. ...
Advantages: Very interesting, hysterically funny, extremely readable Disadvantages: Short chapters may not be to everyone's taste
'Notesfrom a BigCountry', or 'I'm a Stranger Here Myself' as it is known in America, is a book written by popular travel writer BillBryson. 'Travel writer' is underselling him a bit to be honest. Yes, his books are about different places around the world. They are also about people, his reactions to things he comes across- and they are hugely funny.
Bryson was born in Des Moines, Iowa in America in 1951. In 1973 while on a backpacking trip he came to Yorkshire, England and met the woman who was to become his wife (Mrs. Bryson, as we become familiar with her during the books) and settled down. They had kids and he wrote for different English newspapers.
Then, in 1995, Bill, Mrs. Bryson, little Jimmy and the rest of the kids, decided to move back to New Hampshire, America, and thus set the ball rolling for the book to be written ...
Similar products and search queries by other users »
Notes Bill, Notes from Bill, Notes a Bill, Notes Big Bill, Notes Country Bill, Notes from a Bill, Notes from Big Bill, Notes from Country Bill, Notes a Big Bill, Notes a Country Bill, Notes Big Country Bill, Notes from a Big Bill, Notes from a Country Bill, Notes from Big Country Bill, Notes a Big Country Bill
Are you the manufacturer / provider of Notes from a Big Country - Bill Bryson? Click here
