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Summary: 50% Theroux, 45% Barry, 5% Keillor
Review: I truly enjoyed this book, and I've never even lived in England.Bill Bryson's style is one-half literate travelogue and social commentary, much like Paul Theroux, and one-half child-of-the-sixties humor a la Dave Barry, with a touch of Garrison Keillor's midwestern sensibility thrown in. If you enjoy Theroux, Barry, and Keillor, you've got to like Bill Bryson.
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Summary: American liberal whines and rants around Great Britain
Review: Bill Bryson is an anti-property Commie. He warms us up with stories of his frustration at how shop-owners are permitted to fit plate-glass windows into Victorian buildings. He expresses shock and disgust that homeowners are permitted to replace their old, drafty sash windows with modern uPVC windows. He is distraught that farmers are permitted to uproot hedgerows in order to produce food more efficiently. Once he has explained his contempt for the notion of private property, his big-government, statist ideas come as no surprise. None of these ideas, of-course, can be implemented without first confiscating private property. British investors have, en-masse, labelled the town of Morecambe a bad bet. Once-palatial hotels can be had for the price of a London semi-detached. Despite this lack of investor-confidence, Bill Bryson knows best. The answer is a new government agency which spends millions upon millions of pounds smartening up unfashionable seaside resorts and magically attracting hordes of crowds who suddenly decide that Morecambe and Hastings are their favourite locations after all. I wonder if it was Bill Bryson who thought it would be a good idea to build a giant tortoise in the middle of the London docklands. He is appalled that British Rail wanted to close down the Settle-Carlisle line because it didn't pay for itself. We're told that this wrong-headed thinking is an intractable legacy of the Thatcher decade. He mockingly claims that most 'worthwhile' things do not pay for themselves. The fact is, the only objective way of measuring whether or not something is 'worthwhile' is to subject it to the market. If consumers do not value it to the extent that they are prepared to pay its costs then it is not worthwhile. In Bryson's elitist, command-economy fantasy, enlightened intellectuals such as he should arbitrarily value goods and services and the masses should be forced to cough up to ensure that he can continue to enjoy them.
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Summary: This one made me laugh out loud...at work!
Review: I am always looking for an author that can make me laugh while sitting and reading alone. Bill Bryson did it for me! There were moments that his writing rambled a bit, but all in all, it is well worth the laughter.
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Summary: Some people just don't get it
Review: This book is extremely funny. Reading some of the reviews I realise that some people just don't get it.. This is not meant to be a travel book or meant to help a would be traveller to the UK. It is about a man who decided to retrace his arrival into the UK 20 years ago and then goes for one last trip around the isle. It is funny and well worth the read.
Rating: 
Summary: Hilarious in parts, disappointing in others
Review: At times Bill Bryson had me laughing out loud. At other times, he had me shaking his head over his cliches. "Notes" would have been lot better with some good editing, both for length and content. In all, "Notes" reads like a good first or second draft -- there's lots of funny material on England, yet a lot of rambling as well. By two-thirds through, I was ready to set the book aside. If you're reading a range of books on England, by all means, include this one, just don't consider this as bible.
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Summary: I am an Anglophile.
Review: What a fantastic read. Absolutely ripper fun to read out aloud, when you have been caught laughing in public. Bill Bryson has managed to capture the quintessance of the British in his writing. Read this book before you travel to the UK, it will warm the cockles of your heart.
Rating:
Summary: Hilarious for "the Brit abroad", a must for the American
Review: This book covers every aspect of Britain and the Brits that both Americans and the British have wondered about, tried to explain and laughed at for years. If you're a Brit living in America it'll take you home and if you didn't know already, tell you what's so great and yet so amusing about your country and countrymen. If you're an American it'll tell you why that Brit you know makes you laugh or why you just can't fathom him/her.
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Summary: A Big Disappointment
Review: Rarely have I been so disappointed in a well-reviewed book. Mr. Bryson has a two-year-old's fascination with all forms of excretion and a teenager's predilection for a particular four letter word. Worst of all, however, he is a traveler-by-choice who hates to travel. The inconveniences --- poor food and accommodations, long waits for conveyance, boring fellow travelers --- which the seasoned travelers I know shrug off, at least in hindsight, with humor and good grace irritate Mr. Bryson as much as the daily commute frustrates the daily commuter. One gets glimpses of an interesting isle in between the complaints but, all-in-all, one wonders not only why he bothered to do something he obviously doesn't enjoy doing but why he thought the rest of us would be interested in reading about his manifest crotchets. If you read travel books for pleasure, try A Year in Provence by Peter Mayle.
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Summary: You don't want to go THAT way...
Review: How very true so many of Bryson's images are! Anyone who has seen the UK Comedian Harry Enfield will immediately recognise "you don't want to do that..." as a character alive in Bryson's book. I realised the honesty of Bryson's insight into the Britons when I found myself having the car direction conversation in a pub too! And who among us British has not had to endure wet Bank Holiday outings, much like the trek up the mountains. Recommended for "natives" and anyone who wants a hilarious insight into the British way of thinking.
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Summary: American humorist of the century.
Review: Move over James Thurber and Robert Benchley, Bill Bryson has made a late move to become the funniest American writer of the century. And 'Notes From a Small Island' is his funniest to date. With one foot in the U. S. and the other in the U. K., he uses his wry wit and trenchant observation to skewer British foibles and institutions. There is a hearty chuckle, and often outright laughter in almost every paragraph. To be this funny this consistently cannot be as easy as Mr. Bryson makes it seem.
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