Rating: 
Summary: Come on now....
Review: Let me start by saying that shortly prior to 30 miles on the AT I read A Walk in the Woods and loved it. Couldn't put it down and thought Bryson was not only funny but his book was chock full of tidbits of information that I still quote four years later. I was hoping that Lost Continent would be a similar experience. I was disappointed.
The problem with the book is really one of missed opportunity. I don't think that he took the time that he should have. I was amazed. One foggy and snow bound day in Yellowstone. A couple minutes in front of a giant sequoia with a crowd of people. A review of Cleveland from a bridge as he blasted through. He missed so many chances to be impressed, to see the things that make the US great. At this point, most of us know that the typical American town is not really a notable experience. We know there are too many strip malls and fast food joints. Bill should have got that out of the way early and gotten on to the rest of what was out there.
The best parts of this book, for me, were his recollections of vacationing with his dad. These vacations were the inspiration for the book and in the end BB does a great job making you see how nutty, but great his dad really was.
The rest of the book just sets him up to return to Iowa and realize that it is much better that he ever gave it credit for being.
Rating: 
Summary: After Bryson's "Walk in the Woods" this really disappoints.
Review: Like lots of folks, my first experience of Bryson was reading his genuinely hilarious account of his Appalachian Trail adventures. So, when I found "The Lost Continent" on sale at a flea market for a dollar, I snapped it up. Now I'm relieved that that is all it cost me. I started the book with high hopes not only because I'd enjoyed "A Walk in the Woods" but because I, too, would love to find the perfect small town. I thought that Bryson might help in that quest. In fact, the reason for two stars, rather than one or none, is that he does help in that endeavor. Right from start this book jolted me. [...]. There is some point at which humor crosses the line and becomes just plain nasty. Bryson crosses it frequently; his early chapters are almost unremittingly meanspirited. As just one example, he continually ridicules his father, for whom he claims to have affection, yet seems unaware that he describes exactly the same qualities in himself - for which he finds no fault, but blames others. Specifically, he laughs at his father's difficulty in finding an access road to a tourist attraction to which thousands of others have gained access, yet, in Oxford, Mississippi, Bryson is unable to find William Faulkner's house, a "feat" thousands of tourists have clearly accomplished. Instead Bryson pokes fun at the polite woman who tries to give him directions. There is no question that Bill Bryson has a very readable style and there is also no question that many of his insights are spot-on funny and perceptive. But were it not for my wish to find "perfect" small towns to visit, I would have quit the book very early. I genuinely hated - no other word for it - the harshness of his not-at-all funny atttacks on countless people and places.
Rating:
Summary: A hilarious stab at the American heartland?
Review: Perhaps so, but in a good natured "poke-in-the-ribs" sort of way.Born and raised in Iowa ("I come from Des Moines. Somebody had to."), Bryson left the plains to live in England. He returns to write about the land of his childhood. What results is an engagingly humorous look of the world he left behind through his (now) foreign perspective. In the great American tradition of the road trip, Bryson - sans screaming kids - decides to venture forth to document the America he knew and offer insight on what's changed. The book is divided into two trips. One going east, through Ohio, the deep south ("Welcome to Mississippi, we shoot to kill"), through New England back to Des Moines. The other going west to Nebraska, New Mexico, California etc. Through his trips, Bryson details his elusive search for Amalgam, the imaginary utopian American town comprising of hte desirable characteristics of the various towns visited. While offering some astute observations, he unashamedly resorts to harp on the stereotypical which while occasionally funny, gets tiresome after awhile. Admittedly, while Bryson is one of many who have attempted this sort of transcontinental travel writing (think "Travels with Charley" by Steinbeck), his brand of humor is immediately recognizable to an American audience. American readers who might be a tad offended by his travelogue might want to read his take on England as well. One of the better books in the humorous travel writing genre, if there's one.
Rating:
Summary: Bryson's Awkward Early Effort
Review: That old saw, "you can never go home" has rarely been more in evidence than in this book by then-expatriate Bryson. Having lived England for over a decade, he decides to return to his native Iowa and embark on a hazily conceived cross-country road trip. The "road trip" is a distinctly American invention, born of the combination of affluence, the interstate highway system, and the size of America. It's usually invoked as a framework on which to build a tale of discovery, and here Bryson intends to rediscover and ostensibly celebrate small-town America. Touching base in Des Moines to see his mother, he sets out to locate a real-life version of the perfect movie-set small towns of his childhood films.
He begins the trip with frequent stories about his now-dead father, who would drag the family on horrendous family vacations each summer. Unfortunately, his father merely comes across as a cliche bumbling father, always getting lost, too proud to ask for directions, stingy, and choleric toward the equally cliche kids in the back seat. Thankfully as Bryson moves outside of the zone of his childhood vacations, stories of his father disappear. This allows the meat of the book to emergeósmall town America. And in Bryson's eyes, it's not a pretty scene. It doesn't take long for him to realize that chain stores have spread their tentacles across the land and places that might have once have character are now becoming anonymous assemblages of strip malls and parking lots. Because Bryson's been overseas, he assumes a stunned "what happened!?" attitude to this transformation. What happened is the inexorable intersection of a capitalist economy with a consumer society, where chain operations enjoy the economies scale that allow them to offer the cheapest prices to the consumer, who naturally responds. Bryson (rightfully) rails against the loss of character and individuality this engenders in communities across the country. Of course, this is a trend that has only increased in the fifteen years since the book first appeared, and there's little end in sight.
To be sure, Bryson's account is not meant to be a fair-minded, clinical observation. Clearly intended for a British audience, Bryson is always keen to make a broad generalization, cheap joke, snide jibe, or catty comment about what and who he encounters. While this is sometimes entertaining, it often crosses into sheer mean-spiritedness. A particular target of his is the overweight, which he seems to believe is a uniquely American phenomenonórich, when you see statistics suggesting that the British are on their way to passing Americans in the obesity stakes. In any event, there's lots of haranguing about fast food, bad food, scummy hotels, lame tourist traps, and the interchangeability of so many small towns. Eventually, he realizes that the perfect town doesn't exist (although there are three or four he ends up really liking), and he'll have to piece it together in his head from the standout parts of different places.
The 14,000 mile, 38 state (he doesn't get to the deep south, the Pacific Northwest, or the upper northeast) trip isn't very useful per se. Anyone who knows nothing about the backroads of America is going to be horrified, anyone who has a bad opinion about the backroads of America will find plenty of confirmation, and anyone who likes the backroads of America (or lives there) will probably be infuriated. Ultimately, much of the book has a kind of distasteful elitist tone to it, when Bryson does stumble across something he likes, it's treated as an unexpected boon that's all the more shocking for being in the hinterland. I've read almost every one of his other books, and for the most part, greatly enjoyed them, but this isn't of nearly the same quality.
Rating: 
Summary: Lost Continent, Great book
Review: The Lost Continent, by Bill Bryson is a hilarious book. It talks about his trip across the country and back.
Bryson is from Iowa, and some of the book is spent making fun of his own people.
Bill starts his trip in Des Moines, where he has lived for his whole life, retracking the trips that his father had taken the family on. His father's death is what initiated his whole trip.
Bryson is a great writer especially if you like funny stories. I can't remember laughing out loud at a book before I read this. He is also very descriptive when he writes. I could visualize every aspect of the book. I have no trouble relating to this book either; it really seems like he is a "normal", (if you will), type of guy.
The setting may be the most important part of the book because Bryson is contsantly describing where he is and what it is like. I feel like I am "there" when he describes the towns, roads, and people.
It is easy to make a plot like this quite boaring, but with the comedy and descriptiveness, Bill Bryson does a wonderful job of keeping your attention. Enjoy Bill's trip through America. This is really a must read.
Rating: 
Summary: Find the Lost Continent
Review: This is a very funny book. Bryson's two road trips, covering 38 of the 48 continental United States, wind through many famous sites and cities as well as many small towns and endless boring miles in the Midwest. He takes these routes in search of the idyllic small towns he remembers from his youth and imagines, but instead finds that the strip malls, fast food joints and cheap hotels that dominate larger towns have taken hold everywhere. His descriptions of the people and places he visits are hilarious and I think it is too bad some reviewers take his comments personally. He was certainly exaggerating and generalizing his statments for humor, but that makes it entertaining. Certainly he comes off a bit whiny and sometimes mean, but that is Bryson's style and the way he writes all of his books. This is the most enjoyable Bryson book I've read to this point and I think anyone who has ever taken a car trip will appreciate it. It is excellent summer vacation reading.
Rating:
Summary: Young Bryson Can't Match the Mature
Review: This is my third Bill Bryson book. Thank goodness this was not my first, for I probably would not have picked up "In a Sunburned Country," and "A Walk In The Woods." Where Bryson's latest books are droll, witty and endearing, "The Lost Continent" is frequently petty, forced and mean. In this book Bryson travels around 38 states in a beat up Chevette, often through small towns and out of the way places not usually visited by many. He didn't have a very good trip. Most of this book revolves around the author's put-downs of people he sees and caustic comments about places he visits. After a few hundred pages, the observations seem awfully gratuitous. Where disappointments, angst and difficult people were treated with amusement in his later books, here he often dismisses similar trials here with the brilliant and trenchant observation "FU". Not much authorship in those moments. Not to say that there aren't some funny passages. Several times on the train, I found myself reading out loud. However, I also found myself speed reading ahead several times, an unfortunate first for a Bryson Book. Bryson's later works also weave a good deal of interesting historical background and place descriptions into the book. That is almost totally missing in this effort. He occasionally comes up with some awfully good writing. For example, he described driving toward the mountains in Colorado as "driving into the opening credits of a Paramount Picture." (sic). Unfortunately, there are not enough of those moments and instead too many paragraphs describing how he had another bad meal in another bad town with too many ice cream and pizza parlors and not enough ambiance or fetching waitresses to suit his tastes. Bryson has produced much better. But don't let this book (or review) put you off an author whose books can be very satisfying companions. Just go for his more recent stuff.
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