|
Loading... The Lost Continent: Travels in Small-Town Americaby Bill BrysonLibraryThing recommendationsMember recommendations
Loading...
won't like
will probably not like
will probably like
will like
will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book.  imgoodinthestacks | Aug 10, 2009 |  Good but not his best. It was his first book and funny in parts not to the level of some others. (  ) ORFisHome | Jul 13, 2009 | Sometimes I read a book and think to myself "I could have written that," but I could not have done justice to small town travels the way that Bryson has. Admittedly, there are slow moments. Overall it was such a fun read and, in true Bryson tradition, I laughed out loud and forced my husband to listen excerpts as I went along. (  ) bookcaterpillar | Jun 3, 2009 | For those of us who live in large cities and dream of a bucolic life in small town America, this may serve as a cautionary tale. Or Bryson could be being overly snarky....... (  ) PsibrReadHead | Jun 3, 2009 | Reading The Lost Continent makes me want to visit the U.S., since I figure it can't possibly be as bad as Bill Bryson would have us believe. Well, Nevada probably is, but the rest I'd like to see for myself. At times, the book is very funny, yet at others the pages stretch out before the reader like the endless, dusty highway Bryson trundles along. Also, 20 years after publication, many of the author's factoids and statistics are hopelessly dated. His observations about the rise of rabid consumerism proved sadly prophetic, though. ( ) whirled | Mar 15, 2009 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0060920084, Paperback)A travelogue by Bill Bryson is as close to a sure thing as funny books get. The Lost Continent is no exception. Following an urge to rediscover his youth (he should know better), the author leaves his native Des Moines, Iowa, in a journey that takes him across 38 states. Lucky for us, he brought a notebook.With a razor wit and a kind heart, Bryson serves up a colorful tale of boredom, kitsch, and beauty when you least expect it. Gentler elements aside, The Lost Continent is an amusing book. Here's Bryson on the women of his native state: "I will say this, however--and it's a strange, strange thing--the teenaged daughters of these fat women are always utterly delectable ... I don't know what it is that happens to them, but it must be awful to marry one of those nubile cuties knowing that there is a time bomb ticking away in her that will at some unknown date make her bloat out into something huge and grotesque, presumably all of a sudden and without much notice, like a self-inflating raft from which the pin has been yanked." Yes, Bill, but be honest: what do you really think? (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:54 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
Abebooks |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
I stopped at page 55 after Mr. Bryson's diatribe on how people in America do not pronounce the names of cities correctly, as if you have to pronounce Cairo like the city in Egypt and if you don't you are a "backward, undereducated shitkicker." I am not from a small town, but I found this to be the final negative comment I could stand to read. I decided that Mr. Bryson will most likely complain through the rest of the book, so I decided to stop.
"Blue Highways" by William Least Heat-Moon was a far better read about small town America both in prose and scope.
Two stars because I did enjoy a few pages, but otherwise it is just complaint after complaint for very little reason, if any. He tried too hard to be funny by being negative, but it did not work. (