Rating: 
Summary: Anglophiles Unite!
Review: I've read every Bill Bryson book I could get my hands on, starting with A Walk in the Woods, probably his best work so far. That being said, I'll admit the others in his repertoire fall a bit short in comparison (how could they not?) - but please don't let that dissuade you from this wonderful writer.Bryson has made a reputation of his personal, detailed, humorous observances of places foreign. Notes from a Small Island is much like its title - quirky, tongue-in-cheek, and a sort of literary snapshotting. As Bryson prepares to leave Britain, his adopted country of the last 25 years, he takes one last fond look around before shoving off for the Colonies (New Hampshire to be exact - check out I'm a Stranger Here Myself). Bryson's style won't suit everyone. He's a touch caustic and not a little tempermental. This makes for bitingly funny stuff - very British, in fact. He's wonderfully witty, without being superior, and a nuanced writer. He knows what he thinks/feels and he knows how to express himself eloquently. Also, his background info is studied, smart, and relevant (but his digressions are great). This is not to say that he is erudite or arrogant - actually, he's very accessible and tells his stories like you're sitting with him in a pub with a pint. I could listen to (read) them into the wee hours. What really marks Bryson from other travelogues is his humor and his sincerity. I almost never get openly excited when reading, but with Bryson, I can't even take his books out in public because I find myself shaking helplessly from laughter. Also, you know you've found a winner, when you feel the urge to stop people and read passages aloud, just because it's so satisfyingly funny and dead-on. You just gotta share this stuff! Another appealing characteristic of Bryson is his honesty. He can be poignant, hilarious, a little mean, even profound at times, but he's always completely genuine even when looking the fool (which he does marvelously). The reason I can't give this one 5 stars is because I've never been to the UK and can't quite tune into Bryson's frequency here. Still, there is plenty to keep you entertained in fine Bryson style. You won't regret a word.
Rating: 
Summary: Highly recommended!
Review: As an expatriate Brit living in the US I read this with great interest, and echo the thoughts of other ex-pat reviewers' in that it made me feel homesick. Not that this would come as a surprise of course, since I suppose any book about your home country would have this effect, but Bryson's book is unusually insightful. He describes minor points and peculiarities of British life that only someone who has either lived there a long time or has a keen eye would be aware of (he falls into both of these categories). I found myself nodding and smiling in agreement with many of the things he criticises, applauds or ridicules. I think British life has rubbed off on him, he certainly has a very British sense of humour, typified by a fine sense of the ridiculous in everyday life. I would particularly recommend this book to anyone planning on living in Britain for a while, not least because it will encourage them to travel around a bit - many foreign travellers just visit London and nowhere else, which leaves them with a rather unfair view of the rest of the country (unless of course you like laughably expensive congested cities). Great book for ex-pats too! Funny, easy to read, and a good illustration of how travel becomes a lot more interesting if you look at the people as well as the tourist attractions!
Rating:
Summary: The good and the bad
Review: This is a book I have been meaning to read for quite some time. It was recommended to me by one of my friends who I spent 4 months with in Oxford, England. I don't know what took me so long to finally get to it, but I am glad that I did. As an American living in England, Bryson is familiar with their culture, their way of life, their idiosyncrasies. His descriptions of English manners and formalities are dead-on. He speaks often of the dry wit and humor that he admires so much in the English people; Bryson himself is a master of this, making me laugh out loud with his summaries and interactions. This truly is an "affectionate" portrait of Britain, as the book is subtitled. Part travel-narrative, part memoir, "Notes From a Small Island" gives the good along with the bad. As Bryson ruminates between his recent travels along Britian to memories of past trips/his experiences living there, he offers what he loves and loathes about the nation he has come to call home and will miss when he returns to his native land. He speaks with admiration and enthusiasm on the vast number of treasures and historical sites the English have in such a small area, yet many of these have been neglected when they should be revered. Bryson's final tour around Britian before heading back to America, takes him to some typical tourist destination cities, but he offers an insider's view of places the average tourist may never encounter. As someone who has lived in England, it is usually the places off the beaten track that are the best places to visit. I miss it almost as much as Bryson.
Rating:
Summary: Jolly good
Review: I read this book while on my own farewell tour of Britain. My stay was significantly shorter, at 10 months, but I was equally enamoured with the country and was close to staying permanently as Bryson had done. For someone who had been in the country for 20 years, Bryson easily identified those idiosyncrasies that Americans will find most amusing about British customs. His actual travel destinations were quite interesting as well. He found many obscure places to visit that were highly worthwhile. I especially liked the tarp-covered, mosaic floor which dated to the time of Roman occupation of Britain (early centuries A.D.) at an unmarked site in a random patch of woods. A MUST READ for any American who has spent time living in England. I recommend doing so halfway through your time in the country which will give you enough time to appreciate the humor, but also leave time to adopt some of Bryson's travel destinations into your future itineraries. Whether you have lived in England, visited there, or are simply interested the home of clotted cream, roundabouts, and Prince Charles, you will enjoy this witty book.
Rating:
Summary: Bill Bryson
Review: WOW!! Bill Bryson did it again. From notes from a small island to notes from a big country. This was amazing. I'm only 11 and usually wouldnt understand this, but it was GREAT. Better than his later book. I'm thinking of getting The lost continent and this book was phenomenal. 4 stars.
Rating:
Summary: Fallen for Britain
Review: Bill Bryson's: "Notes from a Small Island" are about an American's love of Britain. After having lived and worked (!) in Britain for twenty years and immediately before going back to the US, Bryson embarks on a last trip around the enchanted island. His aim is to search for the true origin of his deep affection. What he finds is a country which most British people themselves have already written off. However, those of us who believe that despite all its potential insufficiencies this Britain, an enchanted and blessed island, must still be alive somewhere, will read Bryson's travel account with tremendous relief. "This Britain is still there", is the message of the book though it is not the Britain of imperial glamour ruling three quarters of the Earth! Bryson does not spare us its unpleasant traits such as the slums in the big cities, decaying seaside resorts, shortages of staple goods on Saturday afternoons and inexplicable railway fares. However, on the other side, it is the Britain of so many pleasant things that make life worth living: cricket matches on Sunday afternoons, village parties in summer, country lanes that "will dance you down to Devon"(Greeba Bridget-Jones in "English Lanes"), to mention only a few examples of why this is still an enchanted island. If most British people really look upon the development of their country in the 20th century as a "chronic failure" as Bryson puts it, then his finds reveal that they are wrong and that their attitude is probably due to a depressive mood resulting from the loss of an empire which they even "dismantled in a generally benign and enlightened way". In considering all the traits of this country whether ugly or pleasant, Bryson proves that his love is genuine. It is a love for better or worse! Therefore, for all of you who like it there too, who "like it more then they can tell", reading the "Notes from a Small Island" is a must and all the others "mustn't grumble!"
Rating:
Summary: Buy it!
Review: So, you've always wanted to visit Britain. You've manfully (or womanfully) ploughed (that's how WE spell it) through many a travel guide and you now know that pubs serve warm beer , the site of every Neolithic pile of stones and that at 4 pm precisely, the entire population stops for a cup of tea. A cup of hot tea at that, with milk if you please. You've gained an insight into the British weather and know to pack clothes to accomodate all four seasons in one day. But what you really need to know is, what makes the people tick?
Enter Bill Bryson and" Notes from a small Island", a must read book for every Britain bound American. With no orderly listing of museum opening times or best ways to get from London to Bath, it's not a travel guide as you know and loath and that is the book's strength. Bryson undertakes a gentle meander around the best and worst of the Island that has become home, interspersing his journey with well observed details of the British character. Its the insight into these characteristics which make the book so funny, so unputdownable and ultimately, so sad as Bryson comes to the end of the journey and his 20 year stay.
Read this book and you will feel that you have already visited Britain and then plan for your own epic journey because that is what you will want to do.
Rating:
Summary: Worth the read.
Review: I'm a Bryson fan, and I enjoyed this book a great deal. I did not think it measured up to 'A Walk In the Woods', or even his latest ('Brief History'), but it is a solid book. There are few authors which can literally make me laugh out loud, and Bryson is one of those. For this, he is worth the price of admission. The book is basically a summary of Bryson going from town to town in Britain and a chronicle of his general impressions of each area. His impressions are highly subjective, which is part of his charm. He has a cynical wit that I just love. However, my big beef with this book was that it seemed after a while as if he was saying, "And then I went here...and then I went here...' over and over again. This became a bit annoying after a while. As I said though, there are few travelogue writers as talented as Bryson. I might opt for the two aforementioned books first if just getting into Bryson, but sooner or later you should check this one out.
Rating:
Summary: Bryson at his best.
Review: Before returning to America from England in 1994, Bill Bryson (A WALK IN THE WOODS, A SHORT HISTORY OF NEARLY EVERYTHING) embarked on a grand farewell tour around the "green and kindly island" that had been his adopted home for twenty years (pp. 5; 118). On his seven-week pilgrimage, Bryson happily travels (via public transportation and by foot) from Dover, through Bournemouth and coastal villages, to London, Liverpool (his favorite English city), the Lake District, Wales, Scotland, and back to his home in Yorkshire. With its 445,000 ancient or historic buildings, 12,000 midieval churches, 1.5 million acres of common land, 120,000 miles of public footpaths, and 600,000 archeological sites, Bryson observes, "you could spend your life moving from stone circle to Roman settlement (remains of) to ruined abbey, and never see but a fraction of them even in a small area" (p. 94) of the country where people put milk in their tea, drive on the left side of the road, and eat cheese-and-pickle sandwiches. NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND is Bryson at his best. In his book, NEITHER HERE NOR THERE, having lost his sense of "private astonishment" for Europe, Bryson found very little to praise about his midlife, rucksack travels through Paris, Florence, Brussels, Stockholm, Rome. As hard as he tried in that book, Bryson was unable to recapture his youthful sense of wonder for Europe again. But this is not the case with NOTES FROM A SMALL ISLAND, which is a series of Bryson "notes" written from the heart. We find Bryson exclaiming, "God, I love this country" (p. 261), and describing his "new and mysterious and exciting" (p. 14) subject with a "sense of wonder" (p. 5) and a sustained "state of small excitation" (p. 53). In his travel narrative of this "small, enchanted island," Bryson comes to recognize what he loves about Britain--"which is to say, all of it. Every last bit of it, good and bad--old churches, country lanes, people saying 'Mustn't grumble' and 'I'm terribly sorry but,' people apologizing to [him] when [he] conks them with a careless elbow, milk in bottles, beans on toast, haymaking in June, seaside piers, Ordinance Survey maps, tea and crumpets, summer showers and foggy winter evenings--evey bit of it" (p. 316. The end of this entertaining travel memoir will leave readers wondering if Bryson will truly find such happiness back in the States, where he says he is needed by the 3.7 million Americans who believe they have been abducted by aliens (p. 5). G. Merritt
Rating:
Summary: A fond and funny farewell to a beloved home
Review: --"Notes" discusses Bill Bryson's final trip around Britain, his adopted and beloved homeland of twenty years.
-- On the bright side, the author clearly shows why he regards Britain so highly. As he puts it, few other places have such charming and concentrated excellence, and in many ways it's as good as it gets. The Brits often have an attractive outlook on life which resembles their sense of humor (there's no great sense in being rushed or keeping a self-centered attitude, it's bad form to curse long lines or other annoyances, and what is most obvious can often be appreciated the most dearly). Many observations (such as why driving in Britain seems so evil, why Communism might have flourished there, or how Wigan escaped the dreadfulness of post-War city planning) were superbly funny and well worth the read.
-- On the perhaps not-so-bright side, the author often seems to pass from wry humor into a grating snideness, and his observations often seem so overwhelmingly mood-dependent that they lack the objectivity, cheerfulness, and professional touch that distinguishes other fine humor and travel writing. For example, his chapter on Durham and the artists of Ashington brings us to the heights of joyfulness and contentment, but then he spoils this buoyant chapter by banally concluding that Brits watch too many Cagney and Lacey re-runs. Well, such is life, sometimes.
-- This is, nevertheless, a wonderfully amusing book and I never found myself bored. The author seems at his best when he isn't in a foul mood, and when he thoughtfully interprets his observations.
-- I'd certainly recommend it to anyone wanting an amusing read or a decent perspective on a decent island.
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