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Notes from a Small Island

Notes from a Small Island

List Price: $14.00
Your Price: $10.50
Product Info Reviews

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Rating: 5 stars
Summary: I laughed out loud
Review: Being British and living overseas it was a hilarious view of how we British really are. I encourage many of my ex-pat friends to read it and I use it in my teaching in adults education when we discuss UK and it's cultural identity as part of a travel and tourism course in NZ.

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Ourselves as other see us
Review: A very brief review, this: one of the happiest and funniest books I have read in a long time. Bryson's observational humour is on a par with some of our best comedians - yet there's some serious observations in there too. A lighthearted travel through the byways of English life, habits and idiosyncrasies, taken by a traveller who is prepared to enter into the spirit of all he sees. I would recommend this to anyone who loves England, who enjoys travel, who likes to laugh, who wants to see the reason for living !

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: The funniest book i have read! and i dont like travel books!
Review: I read this book about a year ago, but i loved it so much i had to write and recommend it. Even now i can still laugh at some of the incidences that i can remember from the book, the landlady in Dover, and old men discriptions especially. it was the first ever travel genre book i had read, and i loved it! i can remember reading the book in my room at halls last year, and i was laughing so load at some of the observations that my flat mates came to investigate. They have all subsequently borrowed, and read the book, and loved it. At the moment my book is somewhere at home in Essex being read by my dad. I do not think i will ever get it back! When i read the book i can remember thinking how true some of the observations were. And cringing at the unflattering ones because they are also true, like any other country we are not perfect. Although we like to think we are, especiallly after a couple of pints down the pub! I am by no means a nationalist, but it made me feel very fond for my home country. I recommend this as a must for any anglophile, or anyone who has visited Britain and liked the sometimes dry humour that passes as conversation over here. This book isn't meant to be serious travelogue, and as long as you read it thus i think anyone could appreciate it! Bill Bryson did a great job describing this country, and its somewhat wierd and peculiar inhabitants. Ta for a enjoyable read. WARNING, do not read this book in any public place, as you might get some very strange looks coming your way when you laugh out load. Take it from one who knows!

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Exellent! Hillarious, I feel like they're my pals! (B&K!)
Review: As soon as I began to read this book, I could not put it down! I could relate to many of Bill's experiences and encounters. What an exellent and unique author! An everyday kind of guy, with a wonderful mind in which to tell his great tales and put across some of his funny,witty but also often serious views of the people, places and cultures that he encounters throughout Europe. Here is a great man, who is not afraid to say it often like it is! I must say finally,that the closer we got to Bill & his brilliant and funny lifelong pal Katz's final destination (which was Turkey,the more I kept in a sense, my yearning to 'stay on the road', in other words, not finish the book! I'll say no more, or give away any clues, as you must read it for yourself~ 'enlightening!'

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Travels in Britain giving rise to memories/ thoughts on it
Review: This is my first Bill Bryson and I must say I enjoyed it. My only disappointment was the use of the four letter f ... word, which to me ought not to find a place in a book of this kind. But the author is American ... writing for an American audience primarily, I suppose! However, I did enjoy Bill's shuffle around Britain and the use of Americanisms and,I fancy, some words of his own making. His comments are perceptive and entertaining and his prose lively to hold the reader's constant attention. Although besotted with a love of GB, he is still able to make trenchant criticisms where he finds these necesary, especially about the so-called architecture of modern buildings. Having been born and bred in southern England and London and having made recent visits to places through which he travels, I found his revealing comments much in line with my own views, particularly about the British character and characters. This won't be my only Bill Bryson book. I trust the others are not dotted with"f..."!

Rating: 3 stars
Summary: Hilarious but shallow
Review: This is my first Bill Bryson book. I spent the last one year in England and I can readily see the truth in some of his observations - the weather and getting from point A to point B are very English subjects of conversation. The English are eccentric, witty and loveable. I found myself laughing out aloud may times but I must admit some of the humour is forced. And halfway through the book he stops offering any worthwhile insight into the towns he is visiting (except may to criticize the town planners, architects etc). Most of the times he is just in and out of trains or buses and looking for a place to eat. A good laugh, but not a travel guide by any means. Nevertheless you will enjoy it if you have already visited Britain

Rating: 5 stars
Summary: Reading this book in public can attract attention
Review: This was my first Bryson book, bought due to boredom in normal Scottish summer weather conditions. In fact I did not begin to read it until I was returning to Dubai and ignored the inflight entertainment completely. Bill Bryson's observations are more astute than Paul Theroux's and far more entertaining.

I laughed out loud so many times I attracted attention to myself in the BA lounge at Heathrow, and later in Dubai when travelling to Singapore reading "Neither Here Not There".

At last an American with a British sense of humour.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: Not His Best, But Still Worth Reading
Review: Although Bryson has got to be the wittiest travel writer around, I wasn't as enchanted with this book as I was with his shorter--and nastier--Neither Here Nor There. In this travelogue, he decided to take a sort of celebratory tour of Britain just prior to moving back to America after 18 years. His goal--largely successful--is to accomplish this all via public transport or foot. Bryson does lots of riffing on various aspects of English culture, often to humorous effect, and never fails to highlight his own mistakes and shortcomings along the way. It's a largely successful book in that he manages to recommend certain destinations and express disappointment at others in a fairly judicious and witty manner. He's also good at highlighting the differences in scale between the U.S. and the UK, not to mention the differing sense of history each culture has.

Rating: 2 stars
Summary: Boring
Review: The book initially attracted me as the first couple of chapters were humourous and well-written. But after that, the book got progressively boring, repetitive in style, predictable, lacking in life, soul, and colour. It is difficult to imagine what the author is trying to describe if you've never been to England, so what is the point in reading the book? Compared to other travel writers, I found Bryson boring, boring, boring. I would not pick up another one of his books.

Rating: 4 stars
Summary: This is a comical and Clever book!
Review: I thought that Bill Brson would be a reasonable writer, but seeing as I lived in England, the book wouldn't appeal to me. I loved it however and each piece appealed to me the same way that any funny book does. Thankyou Bill for this Book.


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