Stephanie Jane reviewed Notes from a Big Country by Bill Bryson
A fascinating snapshot
4 stars
I thought Notes From A Big Country was my very first Bill Bryson book, but Goodreads tells me I had previously read At Home way back in October 2011. That was before I started reviewing everything I read and, I have discovered, if I don't write my thoughts about a particular book then my having read it often fails to lodge in my brain. Does anyone find this or is it simply a personal weirdness to me?
I'm supposed to be reading a literary novel at the moment, but it is just so hot on our campsite that I struggled to focus on it. Glancing around for an alternative, Bryson's volume of collected newspaper articles seemed to be a perfect fit for my attention span! Originally written twenty years ago, Notes From A Big Country is now a fascinating snapshot of American life at the end of the twentieth century …
I thought Notes From A Big Country was my very first Bill Bryson book, but Goodreads tells me I had previously read At Home way back in October 2011. That was before I started reviewing everything I read and, I have discovered, if I don't write my thoughts about a particular book then my having read it often fails to lodge in my brain. Does anyone find this or is it simply a personal weirdness to me?
I'm supposed to be reading a literary novel at the moment, but it is just so hot on our campsite that I struggled to focus on it. Glancing around for an alternative, Bryson's volume of collected newspaper articles seemed to be a perfect fit for my attention span! Originally written twenty years ago, Notes From A Big Country is now a fascinating snapshot of American life at the end of the twentieth century and also, in several aspects, a prophetic glimpse of what British life would become. Articles about ridiculous displays of choice in supermarkets, creeping obesity, ubiquitous effort-saving devices that are anything but, and practically-fraudulent advertisements, all seem uncannily familiar.
I love Bryson's dry humour which frequently struck me as very unAmerican - did this develop during his British years? He is endearingly inept with a great eye for a self-depreciating tale and I often giggled out loud at his observations and mishaps. There's nothing like schadenfreude to make a Brit laugh! If your reading mojo is suffering from heat overload too, I'd recommend a few of Bryson's short essays to revive you!