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Summary: A brilliant read for those that understand British humour
Review: If you enjoy travelling anywhere in Britain, enjoy the British humour then this book is brilliant, if you don't then don't expect anything, you just won't "get it". However I did so much so that I was looking places up on the map to find out whether I could visit the place, regardless of if it got a good or bad description. I didn't matter if I agreed with some of his views they were still enjoyable regardless.
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Summary: A laugh out loud funny book
Review: This was the first Bill Bryson book I had ever read before and I am now a devoyed fan to him. I am from England and can relate to what he is talking about. There are some very funny dialogues and alot of them will make you laugh. This was the start of my long relationship with Bill Bryson and his books. Thankyou God for blessing us with his books.
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Summary: superb overview of English life and eccentricities.
Review: In this book, detailing his one last trip around mainland Britain, Bryson again surpasses himself by creating an intoxicating mixture of facts and humour that will, most literally, have anyone who has ever lived in Britain laughing loud enough to be heard from the other end of the road. It has to be read. That's all from me, but it is HIGHLY recommended!
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Summary: Well written but contrived humor
Review: While a good mini travelogue of Britain, and well-written, the humor seems contrived and thus artificial. While there are some genuine naturally occuring funny moments, Bryson spends a good deal of time trying to be funny and it doesn't work.
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Summary: Excellent book that's a serious thret to the British Patriot
Review: There are certain idiosyncratic notions that you come to accept when you live for a long time in Britain. Apparently you need to be British to appreciate Bill and Ben Flower Pot Men and seaside holidays. And so this book portrays excellently the ironic lifestyle of all that we've come to call, love and accept as being typically British. To a native, travelling round Britain using nothing but public transport doesn't strike anybody as a great day out, especially with the British transport network . As for Bryson, before leaving his much loved north Yorkshire cottage, he needed to investigate and interrogate the island that has given the world such joys as the Morecambe and Wise Show and Tony Hancock, one final time. Notes From a Small Island is a superb book which stands proud in its own unique genre. Bryson's exhaustingly humorous writing combined with a style that leaves you trying to work out when you visited that town before is sure to leave you craving for more. The main attraction of this book is quite convincingly its humour. A marvellous blend of subtle quips merged with gentle, un-insulting statements provides the reader with hilarious accounts of his travels. What pulls him apart from other writers is his incredible talent for observational humour, which all adds to the overall effect of this book. Yes the dialogue is difficult and also quite gritty in small snippets which regrettably and slightly unnecessarily leaves this travellers auto-biography safely on the hands of the older, more experienced reader. Despite the slightly gritty language and a blurb that's about as far away from the story as possible, this book is definitely recommend and a serious threat to the British Patriot. Scott Ellis
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Summary: A 'must' for all Anglophiles!
Review: Bill Bryson captures the essence of the British psyche. He is one of the few authors who can make me laugh out loud at the sheer absurdity but accuracy of his observations. This book was top-seller in the UK for a long time. Just reading the last couple of pages invokes an incredible longing to return to England, at least for a visit.
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Summary: Brilliant
Review: As a Brit living in America I thought it to be one of the funniest books that I have had the pleasure to read in a very long time.
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Summary: A great book for those "in-the-know"
Review: Bill Bryson is a genius. This book is probably the best he has written. For those people that say the English have no sense of humour, they obviously don't know that this book was on the best-seller list in England for months, and was turned into a TV series when Bill toured round England. Reading this book can be embarrassing as you find yourself laughing out loud at numerous intervals - it is wonderfully observant, self-deprecating, cheeky, intelligent, fascinating, sarcastic humour that never gets boring. I don't know what my favourite part is. Probably the whole thing. Bill Bryson lived in England for a very long time, and came to think of it as home. He appreciated our sense of humour (and yes, we spell it humour, not humor), and the fact that we understood irony and sarcasm. He loved our biscuits, our little sayings, our culture, our history, our obsession with cricket (well, not all of us like that game) and football. This book is a wonderful love letter to England about what Bill feels about it, as he makes his farewell tour around it. For those of you that think he is ranting, and is obsessed with finding fault with England, then you just don't get it.
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Summary: Dissapointedly overrated, opposite of "Mother Tongue"
Review: Having read Bryson's "The Mother Tongue and How it Got that Way"(a terrific book), I thought he found so much fault in all around him that I just couldn't finish this diatribe. I was astounded at the depth of his angry ranting against the people he met, the architecture and their society. I was so surprised, having read a number of positive reviews to find this book without much to recommend it.
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Summary: Naughty but nice
Review: Lost in a land where the temeperature only now and then dips its toe below 90 degrees, it takes a lot to make me feel homesick for a land that rarely escapes clouds so low you think you're going to bang your head on them. And yet Bryson's love for England did the impossible--it made me long for long walks home in the rain with only a hot sausage roll for frost-bite protection; pubs with a faintly rotten, musty smell which nevertheless beckon with warmth. I even missed the "musn't grumbles" which, I must admit, are rarley uttered here precisely because it's so hard to grumble living in the sun. Yes, maybe it's time at last to return to the land of my birth, and be miserable once again. Thanks Bill. I think.
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