Rating: 
Summary: What a funny guy!
Review: I needed few good laughs, and I got plenty from this book. As a "foreigner" living in the United States I thought Bryson hit the nail on the head as far as living in this country goes. I'm surprised more Americans aren't bad-mouthing this book! :-) I loved the newspaper column medium as well. I can excuse the journalistic formula, as all newspaper writing follows it, yes? Also it was in a form that I could put the book down for a few days and not lose my "place" in a story. Bryson's other books were hilarious, but I would tire of his humour after a few chapters. The jokes would then be lost on me. I took my time with this one and got as many laughs from the last few chapters as I did with the first. Would love some less America oriented books by Bryson in the future. I still prefer "Notes From a Small Island" and "Neither Here Nor There" over all of his books.
Rating: 
Summary: Laughed out loud a lot!
Review: As an American who lives overseas and returns every other year or so, I can relate to Bryson's startled observations of American culture. The chapter on junkfood (breakfast pizza) was hilarious! I could not stop laughing after I read the part where he was trying to be charming and witty while conversing with a woman on an airplane, unaware his teeth and lips were covered with ink from a pen he'd had in his mouth. I giggle whenever I think about it. I'm definitely going to read his other books.
Rating: 
Summary: Desk Fever
Review: With far too much time on my hands I have elsewhere offered my comments on Bryson's other books and awarded five stars to each. This book is awful. It came out in the UK under the title 'Notes From A Big Country' and is effectively a series of journalistic pieces cobbled together to make a buck. One senses that Bryson has gotten lazy. As a writer, his talents are best served by subjecting himself to inconvenience and peril to entertain us all, (I, for example, was hoping that Bill would be attacked by a bear in A WALK IN THE WOODS and possibly eaten) but this business of sitting by a snug fire in Hanover, New Hampshire and writing about cupholders is a disappointment. Bryson's formula works best when he is the participant rather than a social observer. We have enough journalists making whimsical observations about minutae. We need to get Bill back to somewhere dangerous; Mt Everest would be good. Or somewhere with crocodiles.
Rating:
Summary: Good, but not as good as his others
Review: The short-essay format does not suit Bill Bryson's talents. Just as each chapter gets going, it's time to end, and most chapters end in a formulistic way, referring back to a comment near the beginning. Some chapters still had me laughing out loud, especially in the back half of the book. I've given his other travel books 5 stars, but can give this one "only" 4. Wait for the paperback (sorry, Bill).
Rating:
Summary: laughed out loud in spite of myself
Review: i bought the book on a fluke at the san francisco airport on my way to a family event in st. louis. i could not contain my laughter. both the flight there and the return home, fellow travelers stared at me and my husband shush'd me - but neither could help me contain my laughter. hard as i tried, the laughter was not going to be content silent inside of me. i finished half the book on the way there and the other half on the way home. on the flight home, the woman next to me asked me the name of the book - she had not seen anyone laugh so hard at a book - and she too wanted to read it. when i got home, i sent my copy off to my sister immediatly! highest praise, indeed!
Rating: 
Summary: Okay but no Walk in the Woods
Review: This is a collection of short essays on various topics such as going to the barber shop and the number of cupholders in cars. While some are funny, some seem a bit contrived and other seem to be forced. The essays jump around with no continuity. Not a bad read but not a great one either.
Rating:
Summary: Is he bucking for Andy Rooney's position?
Review: I share some similarities with Mr. Bryson because I, too, left the United States as a young(ish) adult to live in England, returning with my British spouse and children in 1993 after 12 years abroad. I settled in London, rather than Yorkshire, and thus had continuous access to the more cosmopolitan nature of that city and the presence of a large American community with which I affiliated. Nevertheless, I was able to emphathize with much of what Mr. Bryson wrote in "Notes From a Small Island," which I thought was both insightful and uproariously funny. "I'm a Stranger Here Myself" does not rise to the level of "Small Island." The sad thing is, it could have done. The author is candid in his preface that the contents of this book mainly comprise a series of newspaper columns originally written for the amusement and edification of a British audience and are presented with only editorial revisions and deletions. As such, to my mind, the pieces just didn't hang together and never lost their "deadline" feeling. There was always a sense of word conservation and the contents largely lacked any real development and depth. Most of Mr. Bryson's observations, while amusing and often well put, are similar to ones that virtually all of us have had on one occasion or another. I truly don't think that any group, overall, is more capable of laughing at themselves than are Americans -- in fact, I think this is a national characteristic largely lacking in the British. Additionally, the pieces often felt incomplete, as though the author was forced to cut off his train of thought to fit the column space available regardless of how energetically his creative juices were flowing at the time. A few pieces were equally UN-inspired and obviously forced. Finally, there was no real continuity of thought or subject matter from essay to essay. Given the freedom of a book format, Mr. Bryson should have tried to relate and combine similar topics, possibly even taking the best of them and expanding their contents rather than simply tossing every article in willy-nilly. Nevertheless, this book is worth having simply to dip into on a lazy afternoon and chuckle over. I would actually give it a 3 1/2.
Rating:
Summary: Okay, that was good. NEXT!?
Review: I just finished reading I'm a Stranger Here Myself. It seems that every time I read Bryson I find it a thoroughly pleasant experience, but that I start wanting to read another book that has not been made yet. Here's my idea: Take Bill Bryson, and Michael Lewis (Trail Fever, and Liars' Poker) Get 'em together on say a couple of motorcycles and have them trace a path across America using the approximate path that Lewis&Clark used. Each could write essays of the various places they come across. Lewis on political and economic level, and Bryson on the social and historical perspective--with room for lots overlap. Funny these two should appeal to me the same way. Both are Americans that found there writing voices in the UK. Lewis being your basic well-bred Ivy league type from the South no less, gets him places that the average guy does not go. Bryson being folksy Middle-America seems to wind up places the average person does not want to go. Incidentally I grew up in Des Moines, and escaped only to live in the South amongst the elite, so perhaps it would be book designed with one person in mind
Rating:
Summary: I'd hike anywhere with Bill! Sign me up!
Review: I loved "A Walk in the Woods". It was such a fun read and I also learned some interesting things along the way. I'd love to hike anywhere with Bill!
Rating:
Summary: Planning A Long Car Trip? Take Bill Bryson Along!!!
Review: Some books simply do not translate well to the spoken word. But, fortunately for those of us whose work requires extensive car travel, some do. Two things make Bill Bryson's latest, I'm A Stranger Here Myself, a particularly wonderful diversion for the asphalt-addled road warrior; 1) The author, with his distinctive Midwestern/English accent, reads the book, providing the necessary emphasis and inflection to get across the irony he intended; 2) The book is derived from a series of articles written for a British newspaper, so each "chapter" is a self-contained 10-15 minute essay that does not demand the continuity of attention that can often be difficult to achieve in the car. Ostensibly, the book is a series of essays relating the author's impressions of the United States upon returning here to live after 20 years in England. In reality, though, the articles provide insight into the author's more general view of the world today. Readers of Mr. Bryson's A Walk in the Woods will note some familiar themes; Americans don't walk enough, America isn't really crowded when compared to the rest of the world, junk food is a blight on society, etc. His conversational writing style is perfect for this type of material. While I can't say that I agree wholeheartedly with all of his views, (his clear disdain for Newt Gingrich and Ronald Reagan seems incongruous with many of his other views) each of the essays/articles is well thought out, and the majority deliver thought-provoking glimpses into the way we live our lives. In the entire collection, only the excruciating "Tax Form Instructions" falls completely flat. Planning a car trip of 6 hours or more? Take Bill Bryson along!
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