|
Notes from a Small Island (平装)
by Bill Bryson
| Category:
Travel, Travel writing, Fiction |
| Market price: ¥ 158.00
MSL price:
¥ 148.00
[ Shop incentives ]
|
| Stock:
In Stock |
MSL rating:
 Good for Gifts |
| MSL Pointer Review:
Beautifully and intelligently written and thoroughly enjoyable, this book is a typical Bryson read and a must for Britain bound. |
| If you want us to help you with the right titles you're looking for, or to make reading recommendations based on your needs, please contact our consultants. |
|
| |
AllReviews |
  1 2 Total 2 pages 11 items |
|
|
Simon (MSL quote), USA
<2007-01-04 00:00>
Bill Bryson, an American journalist who has lived most of his adult life in Great Britain, has set out to capture the character of the people and place - and completely succeeded.
Bryson is as intimate with England and familiar with the rest of Britain as it is possible to be, without being a native. His strong work, family, and social ties are offset enough by his innate American roots to allow him to be loving yet bring perspective. This book is a sort of fun, haphazard combination of travelogue, commentary, and personal memoir, inscribed largely as he did a 1993 "good-bye to Britain" tour of the place.
Bryson's own story is interesting, his adventures on hiking trails, at bad hotels, and in pubs, shops, and museums, equally fascinating.
But what makes the book is his capture of the stoic, polite British character. He ferrets out the humorous quirks, starting with the nightmare of long-winded travel directions and moving through hospitality, work habits and the particularly brilliant diagnosis of the Atlantic-wide chasm in attitudes to food, fun, and frolic.
Bryson has a command of the language that puts him in the pantheon with Churchill, Updike, and Buckley. Yet he never loses the wit and common touch that make NOTES FROM a fabulous book, to be read over and over!
If I had any one criticism, it would be that Bryson, as evinced by turn of phrase, personal habits, pining for a less-modern classic England, etc., has clearly "gone native." I'm sure he'd admit this himself, and it's not a bad thing, but it clearly colors (or colors) the book.
Still, in all, a fabulous non-fiction must read for anyone on either side of 'the Pond' interested in a good look at the UK. |
|
|
|
1 2 Total 2 pages 11 items |
|
|
|
|
|
|
