Rating: 
Summary: Humor -- and much more
Review: Since many of the reviews below do a fine job of describing this book's general attributes, I'll just mention a few things you'd best remember when reading a Bill Bryson book, particularly The Lost Continent:First, Mr Bryson's doesn't write guidebooks or serious travelogues. He writes anti-guidebooks. Much of The Lost Continent is a counterpoint -- indeed a cure -- for the attacks of 'Meaningfulness And Insight' one sometimes suffers when reading even the best of the 'serious' travel writers such as Jonathan Raban. Second, he's not making fun of the places he goes, the people he meets, and the things he sees because he's a big old meanie. He's trying to be funny, and he tells the unvarnished truth about what he sees and experiences, unlike many travel writers --both professional and amateur -- who simply cannot admit they've come a long way to see something, only to find it disappointing. Mr Bryson is criticized in many reviews for being a 'tourist' not a 'traveler', but it's only tourists who think every sight they see is fascinating simply because they've chosen to see it. Third, Mr Bryson's not 'arrogant' because he doesn't praise everything about America and Americans. In fact, if American readers can hold back their splutters of outrage, they'd realize very quickly that he's *including himself* in nearly all the jokes he makes. A surpassingly ignorant reviewer below has asserted, for example, that our Bill's a hypocrite because he makes jokes about fat people, but then dines on a six-pack and candy bars. Well, of course he does -- Mr Bryson's acknowledging that, for all his griping about fast food and convenience stores and fat bellies, he's no better able to resist temptation than any other American. How many other travel writers -- or any writers at all -- allow us to see them being so fallible? This is arrogance? Finally, I would recommend that the careful reader of The Lost Continent will find much more here than humorous description and anecdote, although both abound. There's also a story. Its only real character, of course, is Bill Bryson, but it's a character who is ultimately open to and changed by his experiences, both in making his comic journeys and in the remembrances of his boyhood his travels evoke. Mr Bryson is seeking more than just an elusive epitome of small-town America; he's trying to learn how to be an American again after a long time away, and he's finding it tough going at times. As an American (an Iowan, even) who's lived overseas for more than a decade myself, I find this story more and more compelling every time I come back to visit both 'lost continents' -- the real one, and this fine book. Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Mediocre
Review: While humorous at times, the book seems to be an endless dialouge of Mr. Bryson's dissappointment of small town America. The author does a good job of describing the countless towns he visits enabling the reader to be an armchair traveller with a good view of life in U.S., but I found myself depressed at the end of each chapter as he conveys his distaste for the people, food, accomidations and atmosphere of every town he visits. If you want Bryson at his best read A Walk In The Woods, a "pee-your-pants" funny book of his travels on the Appalachian Trail
Rating:
Summary: Bryson Rocks!
Review: If you have ever spent a day driving, or spent a night sleeping in your car at an interstate rest area, you must read this book. Bill Bryson is one of the best writers working today and this book shows him at the top of his game. And when you read an love this, read A WALK IN THE WOODS, his tale of Appalachian Trail wanderings.
Rating: 
Summary: This is no guide to the US
Review: Having visited many of the locations he expounds upon I feel his general sour view on life comes through almost all the time. He certainly didn't look for some of the interesting and beautiful attributes of many places. His gratuitous foul language when offering a disgruntled view about a community certainly counters some of the very descriptive language he uses to introduce some communities or locations. I only laughed twice in the entire book; both times were when he had a big dissapointment. I started to feel that he really deserved the bad experience. This is likely my first and last time to read a Bill Bryson piece.
Rating: 
Summary: Bryson is a blast !!!....................
Review: Admittedly, I'm a big Bill Bryson fan, but I can't imagine that his wit wouldn't appeal to many. Lost Continent literally had we wiping tears of laughter from my eyes in certain parts and, in all others, is no less than highly entertaining. Bryson's most comical moments are when he explains the childhood drudgery of family vacation piloted by a cost cutting father. His prose evokes fond memories for those of us old enough to have "suffered" through long distance summer trips in automobiles without air conditioning, roadside motels, and attractions akin to the World's Biggest Ball of Twine. As Bryson ventures throughout America attempting to recapture his youth and find the quintessential American town, we see the country through his eyes which find it, at the same time, charming, ironic, tragic, and glorious - all of it encapsulated in his singular and, often uproarious, sense of satire. Lost Continent is a quick and delightful read and something all should enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: The best American travel book.
Review: If anyone has ever traveled by car to some far off destination, this book will ring true for you. I laughed so much at many parts that I had to put the book away because I could not see the pages. Mr. Bryson writes from the point of view of a comman ordinary person, its easy to read, understand and empathise with his experiences. I loved this book!
Rating:
Summary: US readership need sense of humour transplant
Review: Reaction to Bryson's books demonstrate the huge divide between the US and UK. On this side of the water, we were able to laugh at the fun poked at us in his book,'Notes from a Small Island'. Readers in the US lacked a similar ability to see the funny side of their nation. I first read this book several years ago, and as a frequent visitor to the US, and the Mid west in particular found this book hilarious. Whilst I live in England, I am half American, but still feel able to laugh at the foibles of the American nation. Surely the fact that the American public alone didn't like this book despite its world success, and the fact that all his other books sell well there must indicate that the American readership lack an ability for self examination
Rating:
Summary: A bizarre mixture of nostalgia and bitterness
Review: As with most of Bryson's books, he reveals too much of his own personality, which is pretty distasteful. This rather privileged baby boomer son of the American upper-middle class (he admits that his father was a well-paid sportswriter) roams across the country, finding fault with virtually everything he sees and experiences. It's amazing and disheartening how many of his observations are just exercises in bashing the white American working class and lower-middle class, those "tacky" people who actually shop at K-Mart. While in those sections that describe his travels in the Southern states he takes great pains to express his sympathy for oppressed blacks, he has no compunctions in writing about lower-class whites in language that would be considered incredibly racist if his victims were members of racial or ethnic minority groups. On the other hand, the last few chapters of the book, when he has finished his grand circuit of the United States and has finally returned to his beloved Iowa, degenerate into almost a hokey Midwestern boosterism. He tells us ad nauseum about the wonderful, homespun virtues of the Midwest, and especially Iowa, in contrast to the alleged coldness and hostility of Westerners and Southerners. (Perhaps people in the latter two regions had seen his photo in his previous books and recognized him, which might explain their behavior; I certainly wouldn't want any contact with Bryson.) Ironically, Bryson chose to settle in New England when he finally returned to the United States, which suggests that his nostalgia for the good old Midwest was short-lived. I finished this book, which Bryson dedicated to his late father, with the impression that it was a kind of emotional catharsis for him after his father's death. There seems to be a strong whiff of unfinished business about this whole work, as if it were a long apology to a parent with whom he had lost contact forever. In short, Bryson is an glib but shallow writer with a bad case of Anglophilia. If he finds American life so repugnant, he should probably return the the U.K. permanently and take out British citizenship.
Rating:
Summary: Bitter, cynical middle-age man does America.
Review: Bill Bryson's idea of "discovering" America is driving a few hundred miles to a new city each day, and stepping no more than 25 paces away from his car. No wonder he's so bitter over everything he finds! Everything he sees is covered with concrete, greasy spoon restaurants and annoying tacky tourists. We don't get any useful information about any place he visits, only cynical commentary on the local fat people, or obnoxious tourist trap. There are a few funny moments, but most of his writing here is so grouchy and listless that the book drags on and on and on. Anyone who can turn up their nose at Yellowstone National Park, and find absolutely no flaw with Wall Drug has missed the point somewhere.
Rating:
Summary: A Humerous Look at American Travels
Review: Bill Bryson is one of the funniest authors around. I recently finished Lost Continent, one of his earlier books, and found it very enjoyable. Bryson is able to have a unique perspective on America, being both a native Iowan - but one that has been away from America for many years. Bryson's commentaries on many of the changes in America were very insightful. Overall, I found this book much more rough around the edges than some of his more recent books, but still a very funny read.
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