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I'm a Stranger Here Myself: Notes on Returning to America After 20 Years Away (平装)
by Bill Bryson
| Category:
Travel, Travel writing, Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 168.00
MSL price:
¥ 158.00
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| Stock:
Pre-order item, lead time 3-7 weeks upon payment [ COD term does not apply to pre-order items ] |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Poignant, funny, true, sometimes making you laugh out loud, this book provides a wonderful look at American idiosyncrasies. |
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AllReviews |
1 2   | Total 2 pages 18 items |
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The New York Times Book Review (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Bryson is] great company from the start...equal parts Garrison Keillor, Michael Kinsley and... Dave Barry. |
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Chicago Sun-Times (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Bill Bryson could write an essay about dryer lint or fever reducers and still make us laugh out loud. |
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San Francisco Chronicle (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Painfully funny and genuinely insightful...Bryson has never been wittier or more endearing. |
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The Wall Street Journal (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Wonderfully droll...Bryson is unparalleled in his ability to cut a culture off at the knees in a way that is so humorous and so affectionate that those being ridiculed are laughing too hard to take offense. |
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Brad Hooper (Booklist) (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Bryson is the author of the best-selling A Walk in the Woods (1998), about his hike along the long stretch of the Appalachian Trail. Before that, he lived in Britain for 20 years with his English wife and their four children, working there for the Sunday Times and other publications. After his return to his native U.S., he was asked to write a weekly column for the British Night & Day magazine about his adventures and observations as he underwent the process of repatriation. These columns, written over a two-year period (1996-1998), are now gathered in book form. His subject matter is the idiosyncrasies of contemporary American life, and according to Bryson, speaking from the vantage point of having been away for a long time, we certainly have loads of peculiarities in our national "personality." This is humor writing at its sharpest, and his saving grace is that he does more laughing with us than at us. When he has problems with his computer and calls for help, he moans, "This, you see, is why I don't call my computer help line very often. We haven't been talking four seconds and already I can feel a riptide of ignorance and shame pulling me out into the icy depths of Humiliation Bay." Drug laws and the virtues of garbage disposal are only two of the many facets of American life that Bryson has fun with. |
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Andrew Johns (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
This book is different from the other Bryson books I've read. Rather than addressing a single (mostly) coherent topic, this book is a collection of newspaper columns covering a rather broad and eclectic range of topics. He makes a number of interesting observations about the state of American society in the 1990's, especially the rise of the specialty coffee industry, and our tendency to drive everywhere, including the gym to get exercise. While there are some laugh-out-loud bits buried in here, I somehow was expecting it to be more amusing as whole. In the introduction, Bryson notes these articles were originally written for a British audience and he has tried to remove "chunks of explication that an American would find unnecessary." I find this a bit disappointing - these bits might have been interesting, and would have provided some insights into the differences between the two countries. Overall, this was a light and diverting book, but certainly not the best Bryson has to offer. |
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Liu Yufei (MSL quote0, Taiwan
<2006-12-31 00:00>
About two years ago when my husband and I made up our minds to study abroad in the U.S., one of my friends, who have lived in Boston for many years recommended Bill Bryson's I am a Stranger Here Myself to me. She told me this book reflects American life and will help me learn American ways of living. I kept her words in mind, but didn't read this book until it was chosen as our assigned material in a reading class in the U.S. After reading through this book, I realized why my friend suggested me read it. This book is really a great comfort to foreigners, because what Bill Bryson told the readers mostly resonates with what we've encountered in our daily lives in the U.S.
As foreigners, we usually assume that lack of proficiency in the language is the cause of ineffective communication and it puts us in a very awkward situation. However, in the chapter, "What's Cooking," we know that though a native speaker, Bryson is also bewildered by the complicated terminology the server uses to introduce the special dishes in a fancy restaurant. And in "How to Rent a Car," Bryson has a difficult time figuring out the complexly tiered options in the contract just as I did when I rented a car in the U.S. for the first time. Sometime it makes foreigners feel secure and relieved when realizing that a native speaker is in the same boat.
I am so glad that I got the chance to read this book. Not only did I understand more about American customs and culture, but I also benefited greatly from the author's funny expression and vivid description in English. For foreigners, making ourselves acquainted with American ways of thinking and speaking is crucial to dealing with daily events in a foreign country. In my opinion, Bill Bryson plays the role of a spokesperson for Americans as well as foreigners. In his sarcastic but intriguing tone, Bryson candidly points out some ridiculous phenomena in American society. Some may regard him as a grumpy man complaining a lot in his book, but I was fascinated by his unique humor. I sincerely suggest anyone who would like to travel to the U.S. read this book beforehand. This book is of great help to getting a broad outline of the life style in America. |
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Alexis Smith (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
Bill Bryson has woken up from a coma. Although he has never been on life support or had people anxiously wring their hands while standing over his bed, he has just woken up from a coma. Twenty years ago Bill Bryson made that international journey to Britain and started a new life, complete with wife and kids. Two decades later he packs them all up and journeys back to his motherland, America. He finds that in the twenty years away from his native land things have changed a lot, some for better, some for worst. This is his account on moving back to America after twenty years away.
Bryson was called upon by a British magazine to write weekly columns about returning to America and unleashes a whole new level of wit and flavor as he comically blunders through life for the first few months back. Although sometimes he complains a little too much, it is a book that you will want to refrain from reading in public. Bryson includes interesting and eye opening statistics on mainly pointless but highly entertaining topics. Did you know that 142,000 people per year are sent to the emergency room for injuries inflicted by their clothing, or that there are 256 people in Stockholm named Lars Larson?
Through all of these random statistics Bryson also brings up a good number of points such as why is there a twenty-four hour hotline on floss, or about even important things like red herrings in the political world and what they are trying to cover up. Bryson has written a beautiful love letter to his native country and although possibly irrelevant to life it is a great read and I highly recommend it for anyone who needs a good laugh. |
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Brian Anderson (MSL quote), Germany
<2006-12-31 00:00>
This is a good read, funny and self-deprecating, but also full of the rabid insanity that passes for daily life in these United States when one sees it from the perspective of a good, honest corn-fed American who has lived outside this particular box for a while.
Here is a man who reads newspapers, not just one, and not just the headlines on the front page, but the briefs and the page 13 stories that sharp-eyed, cynical and probably subversive editors find a way to tuck into the paper when they can. Check out "Drug Culture," "Hotel California," and particularly interesting, and still (the book was published in 1998) oddly relevant if you glance at, say, the New York Times, "Why Everyone is Worried," and "Those Boring Foreigners."
There are also good bits, done by a truly funny man, on how to piss off a nun, the folly of flying, a chicken-or-the-egg discussion on walking. There is also, inevitably TV; "The Wasteland," "Commercials, Commercials, Commercials," free speech; "Spinning the Truth," and a wide variety of other delights.
A reviewer from Canada mentioned differences between the U.S. and British editions of the book. I have not seen the U.S. edition (the British edition is called simply "Notes from a Big Country), but it will be interesting to sit down and see what the U.S. publisher felt it needed to add or subtract.
Martin Amis had a similarly good run in his Moronic Inferno, but Amis was much more serious about the whole thing, and later also moved to the U.S. And one wonders what to make of the fact, is it that the U.S. is bigger, and so by the law of averages simply provides more grist for the mill, or are they, and people like Gore Vidal (pretty much everything), and Michael Moore (check out Stupid White Men) on to something? |
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Michael Rawdon (MSL quote), USA
<2006-12-31 00:00>
I gave in to a friend suggesting I read Bryson's work, and I'm glad I did, as I got more good chuckles and laugh-out-loud moments out of this book than in anything I've read in many months.
It's probably inevitable that Bryson would be compared to other modern humorists. The comparison to Dave Barry is apt largely because they both write brief essays on specific topics, and both tend to end their essays with sudden and silly references to something the touched on earlier in the essay. Though the comparison really ends there, since Barry seems more taken with bathroom humor and taking a ridiculous idea to its absurd extreme than is Bryson.
Bryson seems more inclined to touch on issues that seem to have gone to a ridiculous extreme on their own, and that combined with his use of wordplay seem reminiscent of Douglas Adams (Adams' bit in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy about the notice that Arthur Dent's house is going to be bulldozed being locked safely somewhere that Dent couldn't possibly find it could easily have been written by Bryson). His essay "What's Cooking", about the ridiculousness of ordering at a fancy restaurant, had me rolling on my side, and I've read parts of it to several friends. "Mail Call", an ode to the US Postal Service (and Britain's Royal Mail) is equally funny, and has real heart behind it.
The charm of Bryson's writing here is the perspective of an American having been Anglicized and then returning to the US after 20 years. The contrast in cultures, portrayed by someone who's experienced both of them, is endearing, and Bryson makes it clear that when you move you're always giving something up, but getting something new and wonderful in exchange. It's almost enough to make me move to Britain to have the same experience myself.
Alas, the essays - originally written for weekly publication in Britain - become less insightful as time passes, and as Bryson acclimates to his new life in America. He focuses more and more on general ridiculousness in life, and less on the contrast between America and Britain, which is where the book's soul lies. So, for instance, essays about the difficulty of using a Windows-based computer, or about the film Titanic, fall flat. And the essay on the US income tax forms seems entirely generic (what, for instance, are the British forms like, I wonder?).
Despite this, fans of lively humor essayists should certainly give this a try. Another good comparison might be with Richard Feynman's autobiographical Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman; both books are funny, uplifting, and make you feel good just to be alive. It's heartwarming to know that there are people like Bryson in the world.
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