The Road to Little Dribbling: Adventures of an American in Britain

This book is about one-third a great travelogue, featuring great descriptions of landscapes, sites, landmarks, and history. Unfortunately, the other two-thirds are an old guy griping about everything and everyone he encounters, usually from a lack of preparation or effort on his own part. Andy Rooney could barely hold a candle to the blathering pseudo-insights of what Bryson thinks is wrong with the world. Truly "Old Man Yells at Cloud" levels of cantankerousness. It is a shame, because the travelogue aspect is informative and even charming at times, only to be marred by Bryson's purposeful attempts to malign himself to the reader as a grade A curmudgeon. About 1 in 10 anecdotes are amusing and worthwhile, while the rest just highlight show more the dolts Bryson could easily avoid, the food he is shoving in his face but does not like, or how drunk he got. It is a shame because I do enjoy Bryson's writing on a technical level, but this book is a warning to steer clear from his personal experiences and stick to the objective subject matter books that he has authored. show less

Hard as it may be for Bill Bryson fans to believe, his breakthrough book about England, Notes from a Small Island, is now 20 years old. This may just be a little difficult for Bryson to believe also, because it was only after his publisher pointed the anniversary date out to him and inquired about a possible sequel that the author even considered such a thing worth doing. Coincidentally, Bryson had also just become a dual citizen of Great Britain and the United States, so he decided there was no better time to travel around his newly adopted country revisiting a few of the spots he highlighted in Notes from a Small Island and finally making it to some of the other places he had, up to then, managed to miss in his forty years of living show more on the island. All of this would be accomplished, of course, with the new book firmly in mind.

Early on in The Road to Little Dribbling, Bryson states that he never intended to follow literally in the footsteps of Notes because if he did that he feared that the new book would become little more than a whining narrative about how those places had all changed for the worse. Nonetheless, as the author steadily makes his way around the U.K., a sense of loss begins to overwhelm both him and the reader. In Bryson’s defense, however, his readers will easily understand a feeling they are likely to have often had themselves when revisiting their own pasts.

Times were simpler twenty years ago. Because there were fewer cars on the roads, it was easier (if perhaps slower) to make one's way through a country so well serviced by its public transportation system. People were more optimistic about the future and were enjoying life as the world moved further and further from the aftermath of World War II. Roads were new, seaside resorts were still fresh and well maintained, and a feeling of economic restraint was nowhere to be found in Britain. Today, while the natural beauty of the country is as great as ever, cutbacks and infrastructure deterioration are evident. And despite the well-earned English reputation for stoicism, pessimism now seems more the order of the day.

But don't let that worry you, as a reader, too much. The old Bill Bryson is still very much in evidence, his sense of humor and irony are still intact, and this book is as much fun to read as I suspect it was for its author to write. In one of my favorite bits from the book, Bryson even takes it upon himself to create what he calls “The Bryson Line,” map included, which more correctly identifies the two points in Britain with the most distance between them. They are not Lands End and John O'Groats (as my journey completion certificate from the nineties attests) but Bognor Regis (well to the east of Lands End) and Cape Wrath (a bit west of John O'Groats). So now I need to earn a new certification or stop telling complete strangers that I once completed the trip between the two most widely separated cities in the U.K. Thanks for an excuse to revisit Britain, Bill.

Traveling with Bill Bryson, even in print, makes for a fun trip because of the way he throws out little tidbits and observations when you least expect to hear them. Here are a couple of my particular favorites:

“It was as if they had died and gone to heaven, albeit a heaven populated largely by people with enormous bellies and neck tattoos...” – this while describing the reaction of his two London grandsons who were seeing an Everton football home match for the first time ever. Previously, the only other live Everton fan they had ever seen was their father.

“They all looked like the sort of people who had never had sex with anything they couldn't put in a closet afterwards. I tried to imagine what the rest of their lives were like if this was the fun part, but couldn't.” – this an observation Bryson made when running across a small group of “trainspotters” in a Lancashire train station.

All in all, The Road to Little Dribbling (a place Bryson is still looking for, by the way) is great fun. Longtime fans are certain to be pleased, and new ones are going to be eager to take more trips with Bill Bryson via his earlier books. show less

Wow. It took me an extraordinarily long time to finish this book, especially considering how much I enjoyed it. Yes, I put it down for a couple of weeks to read a library book I'd been waiting for for many weeks, but still. I may also have been slowed down by the fact that at least once every chapter I found myself laughing out loud and marking, copying or reading some phrase or passage to whoever happened to be nearby. There is so much here-- it is primarily observations taken on Bryson's second (purposeful) trip around Britain, done a few decades after his first one, and after he'd been living in the country all that time. But more than just passionate exaltations about the beauty of the landscape (of which there are many), there is a show more great deal of history as well as commentary about the current state of the culture and politics of the place. The descriptions are so rapturous, I wanted to visit many places immediately. I certainly plan to go and walk around Britain a lot someday, and I will certainly take this book along with me when I do. show less

Twenty years after Notes from a Small Island, Bill Bryson again tours England, only occasionally going to places he's gone before, and comments on the countryside, people, pubs, litter and history.

I generally like Bryson's rambly style of including just various things he finds interesting. I enjoy history and I loved my trip to London a few years back, and I've found a few more places I'd love to check out in part due to Bryson's accounts. This one continues that same style of traveling, bumbling around, and commenting - mainly in a very curmudgeonly manner, but sometimes deeming something good or "splendid" - on what he encounters. Some people have commented that he seems a bit more grumpy than usual, and I can see why. Most of the show more time I found it a humorous take and a bit of a persona, but occasionally I thought he went over the top, particularly in one recounting where he became so upset with a woman that let her dog poop wherever and then merely covered with leaves that, he says, he killed her and buried the body. And while I'll admit I grew up in a household that barely cursed so I may notice it more than average, there were several more f-words than I would have expected. He's a talented writer and could have found more entertaining ways of insulting people (if that's really what he wanted to do) than calling them f***s. On the other hand, some of his descriptions had me laughing out loud and I really want to see the Ashmolean Museum now. So a mixed bag, but a decent Bryson is still a worthwhile read. show less

Forty years after arriving in the U.K., Bryson decides to travel about to visit many of the places he'd never seen. Of course, after 40 years in a smallish country, he also ends up in many places he hadn't seen in decades and can't help but compare them to his memories, and the present day version often loses. This is an older, grumbling Bryson, who complains about train lines, customer service, housing developments, the disappearance of traditional British shops and littering. He also delves into the history of Stonehenge, the fishing industry, holiday camps, eccentric museum founders and nuclear power. He visits perfectly preserved tiny villages, seaside towns with their best days behind them, and lots of small museums. While not show more everyone would enjoy being guided by a testy old man who constantly complains that things aren't what they used to be, I was happy with his surly company. Bryson hasn't lost his sense of humor or his sense of adventure. He walks every chance he gets, taking roads and trails without knowing where they'll lead him. show less

Bill Bryson’s latest book, THE ROAD TO LITTLE DRIBBLING: ADVENTURES OF AN AMERICAN IN BRITAIN, is a delight to read. On a cold, gray, wintry day in New England, I can’t think of another book I would rather sit next to the woodstove with. If I’m not quietly chuckling, I am shouting out, “I know. I hate that, too!” or “What a great idea!” or “What were they thinking!”
Mr. Bryson is ‘spot on’ with his musings and observations. He loves his adopted country and travels extensively throughout its borders. I like his idea of visiting places along the ‘Bryson Line’ which runs from Bognor Regis to Cape Wrath. The ‘Bryson Line’ is the longest distance you can travel in Britain in a straight line.
I highlighted numerous show more passages, intending to repeat them here, but I realized I would be copying almost the entire book! Let me repeat just a few notes.
“Almost 40% of London is green space.”
London is arguably the biggest city in the world - “in terms of density and complexity and depth of history.”
“That is the most extraordinary fact about Britain. It wants to be a garden.”
I do like the closing of the book when Bill muses about his reasons for loving Britain as he does. As he travels to the White Horse of Uffington, just beneath the ancient track known as the Ridgeway, he says that, “There isn’t a landscape in the world that is more artfully worked, more lovely to behold, more comfortable to be in than the countryside of Great Britain. It is the world’s largest park, its most perfect accidental garden. I think it may be the British nation’s most glorious achievement. All Britain has to do now is look after it. I hope that’s not too much to ask.”
Thank you, Bill, for another great book. I quite enjoyed it. show less

I've always enjoyed Bill Bryson. I loved [book:A Walk in the Woods] and [book:The Mother Tongue] and his Shakespeare book, etc. This? Not this. I couldn't manage this.

Yes, it was lovely to learn that we've all been pronouncing "Everest" wrong (and that George Everest never went up it). It's good to know that almost 40% of London is park and the city is almost half as populated as New York, and France and England are only 20.6 miles apart at their closest point, and such. Motopia is a very cool idea and I'm enjoying running it through Google Image. But…

>“It’s not the same thing at all. You can’t be this stupid.”

>“Well, pardon me for saying so, but you’re an idiot,” I said matter-of-factly.

This is Bryson quoting … show more himself. And both times he was talking to a young person in the service industry. If he's being honest and not self-mocking or self-parodying or whatever, Bill Bryson is apparently a jackass.

“Do you want fries with that?” the young man serving me asked.
I hesitated for a moment, and in a pained but patient tone said: “No. That’s why I didn’t ask for fries, you see.”

Seriously. I don't want to spend time with this person. When he calls Leslie Charteris "a recluse and a bigot" it feels very much like a pot and kettle pronouncement.

The humor is forced, and very much largely unfunny. I'm disappointed – and I quit.

The usual disclaimer: I received this book via Netgalley for review. show less